This is an example of how the world changes.

Traditionally, leaders at colleges take an approach to the presence of guns on campuses that mirrors that of their counterparts at houses of worship. These are sanctuaries, places where everyone should feel safe.

After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 — five days later, to be specific — hundreds of presidents from colleges throughout the United States signed a petition maintaining opposition to laws allowing guns on campuses and pleading instead for elected officials to enact “rational gun safety measures.”

In survey after survey held year after year, college leaders have been resolute. But rational laws remain elusive, even as the tide of blood continues to rise on American campuses.

So Connecticut community colleges got approval four years ago to arm security. Security departments in some campuses remain unarmed, while others now have guards who carry. That’s how the world changes. The cause is loud, the effect hushed.

Now, even more quietly, the security at Connecticut’s community colleges will be transformed. A task force made recommendations to the Board of Regents that are likely to be approved. Dead students on high school and college campuses around the nation will mean more armor, more weapons at these Connecticut schools.

The task force has 10 suggestions, led by a recommendation of a mix of armed police officers and security. They seek the creation of a position to oversee security at all 12 community college campuses.

Whether or not you support the creepage of guns into campus security departments, it’s important to recognize State Colleges and Universities President Mark Ojakian formed the task force in response to students.

Ojakian has concerns of his own. He says he recognized inconsistencies in security at the campuses upon taking the position in 2015. Some campuses leaned on relationships with nearby state troopers or police departments, but “nearby” has a wide breadth in some corners of Connecticut. Other campuses had a private security guard in a random location. Approaches to lighting and fencing are not common.

He recognizes he is something of an anomaly because he is not an academic. But experiences on his previous job undoubtedly shaped the lens through which he sees the campuses.

Ojakian was chief of staff in Gov. Dannel Malloy’s office on Dec. 14, 2012, when those 20 students and six adults were killed in Newtown. Many students on college campuses today were children themselves on that day, so they see security through a filter older generations never imagined.

Arming guards, no matter how well-trained, remains theater. It’s about quelling anxiety for students and staff.

Ojakian has felt that unease. He recalls working in the state capitol before there were metal detectors, when security amounted to a sign in English and Spanish declaring weapons were not allowed.

“I (was) sitting in the governor’s office one day and thinking someone can walk in with a gun,” he recalls.

Even after Sandy Hook, when Connecticut was on a path to passing the most aggressive gun control legislation in the nation, he paused to consider the pro-gun zealots who packed the halls beneath the gold dome. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’m sure someone snuck a gun in here,’ and being afraid.”

As the architect of a divisive plan to consolidate the community colleges, Ojakian is not the most popular person on any of the campuses right now. Nevertheless, I believe him when he says he wants “our faculty and students not to feel afraid to go to work.”

My knowledge of the recommendations is shaped by friends who work at various campuses, as the issue has received little media coverage. I seem to momentarily catch Ojakian off-guard when I raise the subject during an editorial board meeting, but he never flinches. I respect his reasoning that the state needs to do better than simply assigning one person to a security desk with a panic button.

“A relationship with local police is good but sometimes having somebody on campus with a weapon serves as a deterrent,” he says.

At least the task force did not surrender to the unbalanced reasoning that the best solution would be to arm teachers, a delusion frequently voiced by gun advocates and NRA-sponsored lawmakers throughout the nation.

For all his candor, Ojakian knows care must be taken not to reveal security shortcomings that would “provide a road map for someone who wants to create havoc.”

But he reveals enough when he says “periodically when I go to the movies now, I look around and think to myself, ‘how would I get out of here (in an emergency)?’”

That’s a changed world.

John Breunig is editorial page editor of Greenwich Time and The Stamford Advocate. Jbreunig@scni.com; 203-964-2281; twitter.com/johnbreunig.