Calling "campus violence a reality" to prepare for, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore announced plans Thursday to spend $60,000 on the Clark Kent of teacher supplies: an innocuous-looking white board that can stop bullets.

 

The high-tech tablet — which hangs on a hook, measures 18 by 20 inches and comes in pink, blue and green — can be used as a personal shield for professors under attack, according to the company that makes it, and a portable writing pad in quieter times.

 

"It needs to be a great whiteboard and a useful tool so that it doesn't get hidden in the closet," said maker² George Tunis. His Worcester County company Hardwire LLC starting out making military armor, then adapted it for the classroom after the tragic³ shootings last year at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed.

 

High-profile incidents like Sandy Hook and the 2007 mass murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech have led campuses across the country to focus on safety.

 

They've developed assessment⁴ teams to evaluate potential threats and revamped policies to tighten⁵ security. And in Maryland next week, campus police from nine schools are taking a training course in recognizing mental illness to help them defuse potentially dangerous situations.

 

Body armor is the latest effort, security experts said.

 

"There are several vendors⁶ that have this type of personalized armor," said S. Daniel Carter, a national campus safety advocate. "It's not something that is in much great use."

 

UMES is the first university to adopt Hardwire's technology, though the company said it has sold its bulletproof whiteboards, which cost $299 apiece, to roughly 100 lower-grade schools in five states, including Maryland. It also makes bulletproof door shields, clipboards and inserts for children's backpacks, all of which it sells online.

 

UMES President Juliette B. Bell said in a telephone interview that she decided⁷ to order 200 whiteboards for faculty⁸ using funds from the university's foundation account so the school could be "proactive rather than reactive" in a violent situation.

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