Security Tech Foundations That Colleges and Universities Often Miss

I recently had the privilege of speaking at a higher education security conference — an experience that felt a lot like coming home.

This community is where I got my start in the security industry. Some of the early projects I led were for sprawling college campuses trying to balance openness with accountability, freedom with safety, and autonomy with structure. I’ve made mistakes, seen promising rollouts fall apart, and learned, sometimes the hard way, what it actually takes to make security programs work.

And what struck me most during my recent speaking engagement? Just how relevant the early lessons I learned still are.

Despite all the advancements we’ve made — cloud platforms, mobile credentials, artificial intelligence (AI) analytics, and more — the conversations we had 10 or even 15 years ago still resonate. Why? Because the core problems haven’t changed. Not really.

Technology isn’t the issue. Follow-through is.

The 2 Things That Still Matter Most

If there’s one takeaway I hope campus leaders are left with, it’s this: before you chase what’s next, fix what’s now.

There are two foundational elements that remain critically important but too often ignored:

1. Build a Campus Safety and Security Tech Committee

Campus safety is a team sport. Period. Public Safety, IT, Facilities, HR, Academic Leadership: they all touch the security ecosystem. But if these teams aren’t communicating regularly, you’re not building a program. You’re building silos.

A standing committee brings these voices together. It creates alignment. It assigns ownership. It gives legs to your strategies and teeth to your policies. Without this kind of cross-functional structure, even the best tech stack will struggle to succeed.

2. Set Campus Security Tech Standards

It’s easy to get excited about emerging technology: facial recognition, AI dashboards, mobile-first credentials. But far too often, we see organizations layering new innovations on top of broken foundations: the blue light phones that don’t work; the key cabinets no one has audited in years;  the access control systems that were never rolled out beyond a few doors.

We don’t need more pilots. We need more playbooks.

Standards that are written, enforced, and reviewed are what turn technology from shelfware into strategy. They apply to every part of your ecosystem: door hardware, software integrations, construction planning, emergency response protocols, and most importantly, credential management.

Why This Still Resonates in Campus Security Tech

At the conference I recently spoke at, the audience wasn’t just nodding; they were relating. I asked how many had systems on campus that no one really owns. How many had projects that started strong but fizzled out. How many have seen rollouts fall short of expectations because ownership was unclear or end-user trust wasn’t built.

The hands went up fast.

That’s because this isn’t just about hardware or budget. It’s about trust. And when the people on campus don’t trust the systems you’ve put in place — when they prop open doors, ignore check-in procedures, or bypass tech entirely — you haven’t just failed to secure a building. You’ve failed to earn buy-in.

The Path Forward

There’s no question that the future of campus safety is exciting. We’re seeing tools that can make first responders faster, give leadership real-time insights, and offer users a seamless experience. But none of that matters if the foundation isn’t strong.

Start with people. Align on strategy. Standardize your existing technology before adding new layers.

It may not be flashy. But it works.

And after nearly two decades in this space, I can say with certainty that the organizations that get this right are the ones who stay safer, adapt faster, and ultimately, serve their mission better.

Kyle Gordon is executive vice president of sales, marketing and commercial excellence for AMAG Technology. 

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