The tragic death of Auburn student and Marietta native Lauren Burk has received much-deserved attention. She was greatly loved by the hundreds who knew her, and she is deeply missed by her still-in-shock family, friends and community.

Of course, the same is true of the horrible death less than 24 hours later of University of North Carolina student Eve Marie Carson. Since Lauren was a friend of mine, as is her mother, and my sons grew up with the beautiful and effervescent young lady, I focus more heavily on her tragedy.

The violent way in which she died has caused us all to ask, why, even if it was her time to go, did it have to happen in such a nightmarish way?

As a parent, this is the question that torments me. Perhaps her death can serve to force a discussion on the widely varying criteria that colleges and universities use to determine whether to issue campuswide alerts when a heinous crime occurs.

By reading the www.auburn.edu Web site, it is amazing to see that, even though Auburn has a tested process to automatically notify students (and parents) of any potential threat, this system was not used. No alert was issued even though the authorities had tied Lauren's death (off campus) with her torched car (on campus). Obviously, the authorities knew that a lethally armed person was at large and this person was evidently on campus sometime near 9:27 p.m.

Yet even as the link between Lauren's off-campus death and her gun-bearing assailant became clear, no students were alerted to be watchful or, more obviously, to stay indoors and "lock your doors."

Even if an alert had not gone out until 11 p.m. or midnight, Auburn University's administration would not be dealing with the groundswell of parental outrage that is currently going on. It is not the murder itself, but the imprudent decision not to act, not to notify, that would severely limit my willingness to send my son or daughter to school on this particular campus.

Their error was less a conscious decision than a serious oversight in light of the very recent images of mass murders at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech.

One might remember that the Virginia Tech massacre began with the murder of a female student, which campus authorities also treated as a single event.

Yet 90 minutes later it turned out to be the precursor to a much more heinous act. Auburn's decision not to alert other students to a potential danger illustrates the need for a nationally standardized escalation process that all colleges and universities would be bound to follow.

The guesswork of how intensely to respond must be removed. Perhaps this is the real purpose of Lauren's heartbreaking death.

Just as the Sept. 11 attacks taught the airline industry (and even airline passengers) to never again view a hijacking as something to be quietly suffered, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University and our beloved Lauren's death at Auburn have shown us that the nation's campuses must have a unified response plan for heinous murders that involve students.

My eyes are still burning and weary from last week's sadness, and my heart is with Lauren's family and closest friends.

> Dawn Barrs lives in Marietta.