RALEIGH -- In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre that killed 32 people in April, Attorney General Roy Cooper created a task force devoted to help make college campuses safer. That panel is expected to release its recommendations Thursday.

According to a preliminary report, one of the recommendations is to adopt emergency plans, practice them and train faculty and students. Officials with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro did just that earlier this week, when a mock drill simulated a gunman on campus.

The report also urges universities to establish teams to monitor students and staff who could be potentially dangerous, provide better information about student privacy laws and implement multiple systems to notify people on campus in case of an emergency.

The task force suggests creating a North Carolina Center for Campus Safety and it wants the state to prevent people with mental illness from buying guns.

In November, the UNC Campus Safety Task Force, a different committee with a similar mission, made some similar recommendations that the attorney general also endorsed.

Cooper stresses that what will really make a difference is not the creation of these policies but the enforcement.