Campuses across the country responded to the Va. Tech tragedy by increasing their own preventative measures. Since April 16 last year, most administrators have focused on increasing alert systems or other methods of communicating an emergency.
U. Iowa: Alert system young, still being tested
Penn State officials: We can plan for emergencies, but can’t prevent tragedy
Northwestern U.: Emergency communications on and off city campuses
Rutgers looks to improve safety measures in light of tragedy
New Ferrum College safety measures tested and working
U. Wisconsin increases communication methods and awareness plans
U. South Carolina committee makes students more aware of problems
U. Iowa: Alert system young, being tested
By Ashton Shurson
Daily Iowan
While the University of Iowa mobile alert system is young, one of the key features of recent safety implementations, it has already been used three times and received its fair share of criticism.
At the University of Iowa, the new Hawk Alert message system — which began in August 2007 and added text messaging and voice mails in December 2007 — has already been used to notify students about weather-related class cancellations and most recently, a potential active gunman.
Iowa has also installed outdoor warning systems and last fall the university and the state Board of Regents controversially decided to allow the campus police to carry firearms.
All 45,500 faculty, staff, and students receive Hawk Alert e-mails, but roughly half have their cell phones registered with service as well — meaning they are able to receive voice mails and text messages. It also calls home phones, when listed.
Last month, the university saw the Hawk Alert in action. Many students and employees received early morning text messages and calls March 24 stating that an active, middle-aged shooter was in the Iowa City area.
Although it was later found out that the “gunman,” Steven Sueppel, had been dead for a couple hours (though this was unconfirmed) after murdering his wife and four children, with no apparent firearms involved.
Many students were left perplexed and confused from the first alert. As more information was released, more alerts were sent out to keep the university community updated.
And while many applauded Iowa’s efforts to notify students of what was happening, many were upset at the lateness of the messages and the lack of instructions.
University of Iowa police and other officials said that because of the 120 character limit in text messages, they wanted to make sure they were at least able to alert the public of possible danger.
Yet despite having a system that is still unknown at some campuses, UI officials decided that Hawk Alert could use some improvement. University of Iowa spokesman Steve Parrott recently said they will work to send out more messages, more frequently.
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Penn State officials: We can plan for emergencies, but can’t prevent tragedy
By Katharine Lackey
Daily Collegian
A year after the Virginia Tech shootings, Penn State officials say they cannot prevent a similar tragedy from occurring; Instead, they can only plan and review existing emergency systems already in place.
“What you try to do is be vigilant and be safe and have plans in place and have police available,” Annemarie Mountz, university spokeswoman, said, “but this is an open society; it’s not a place that has 12 foot high barbed wire fences.”
Penn State is constantly revising it emergency plans, Mountz said, and recently tested its text messaging alert system, PSUTXT, which has over 38,000 subscribers university-wide.
The test, which was deemed successful, was designed to examine the server’s ability to handle both the number of people simultaneously sending messages and the number of messages being sent.
On April 16, Seung Hui Cho opened fire in a Virginia Tech dormitory and two hours later in a classroom, killing 32 people. Since the event, universities nationwide have been evaluating and changing their emergency plans.
At Penn State, a task force has been created to explore communication between different community and university entities, including local law enforcement and mental health services, said Dennis Heitzmann, director of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).
“What we’re learning is that for a variety of legal, ethical and practical reasons, there are disconnects among units and individuals who have information about an individual at risk,” he said. “Our job now is to locate gaps and fill them in with reasonable operational systems so as to ensure that students in need are referred for treatment.”
University officials are also working on a matrix to define when it is necessary to notify students of possible danger on or off campus, said Steve Abrams, Penn State police emergency management coordinator.
“We’re looking at trigger points,” he said. “If you cross this threshold, this should happen.”
The plan will detail when the university should use communications systems such as PSUTXT, television, radio and e-mail to notify students. It will be continuously updated and modified, making it a “living document,” Abrams said.
“We have a basic outline already in place,” he said. “Some of it you have to go a step further and look at refinements and completions.”
While PSUTXT is an important component of Penn State’s emergency plan, Mountz said, it does not prevent the unthinkable.
“PSUTXT is not the be-all and end-all of emergency communications,” she said. “Even the best communications plan in the world is not going to keep people safe; is not going to prevent a disturbed person from walking anywhere on campus.”
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Emergency communications on and off city campuses
By Nathalie Tadena
Daily Northwestern
Weinberg sophomore Richard Murphy said he woke up on Tuesday morning to the sound of a loud, pre-recorded message.
“It was loud enough to wake me up – and I’m a pretty heavy sleeper,” Murphy said.
The 10 a.m. alarm test was one part of Northwestern’s new emergency notification system that has been put in place over the past year.
Plans to update NU’s emergency plan had been in the works prior to last April’s shooting at Virginia Tech and February’s shooting at Northern Illinois University, which occurred only 70 miles from Evanston.
The tragedies made the university’s security improvements even more timely and necessary, said Al Cubbage, vice president for university relations.
“There has been a significant investment on the part of the university in improving our emergency preparation and our emergency response capabilities,” he said.
To supplement its emergency communications procedures, an outdoor alarm system was installed on NU’s Evanston campus last week. Roof-mounted speakers at four different campus locations can project siren sounds and voice messages to inform individuals who are close to campus of weather advisories and other emergencies, Cubbage said.
While students on the Chicago campus receive emergency phone messages, NU is looking into an alternative to an outdoor alarm system at the Chicago campus.
“An outdoor alert system may not be practical because of the density of the Chicago area (and) residential units (in the area),” Cubbage said.
Still the university is looking into other possibilities including alert systems in the side buildings of the Chicago campus, he said.
Additions to campus security include an emergency notification system for all students, faculty and staff that went into effect early this academic year. Undergraduates were asked to submit an emergency notification number last fall in order to register for Winter Quarter classes. In the event of an emergency, a recorded voice message will be sent almost instantaneously to all faculty, staff and students on both campuses.
“The phone call is the key part,” Cubbage said. “To dial the entire campus community can be done in less than half an hour. That’s more than 25,000 numbers.”
The emergency notification system also sends out text and e-mail messages to its database of contacts. While the system will be tested at least once every academic year, the effectiveness of emergency messages may be hampered by students’ limited accessibility through their cell phones.
Weinberg freshman Sarah Gregory said she usually keeps her phone on silent.
“If it was a dire emergency and people needed to know immediately, many people are not going to get the message,” she said.
For both NU campuses, the use of a combination of communication methods is necessary to ensure all students and faculty are notified in an emergency.
“The emergency notification system enables us to use several different communication channels to reach the campus community,” Cubbage said.
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Rutgers looks to improve safety measures in light of tragedy
By Dmitry Sheynin and Brendan McInerney
Daily Targum
In the year that has seemingly flown by since the Virginia Tech shooting, the University has managed to implement a text messaging system as part of a step-by-step course of action in preparation for tragedy they hope never to see.
The Rutgers Division of Public Safety said the system, instituted to warn students in the case of an emergency, was fully operational in an online statement posted in December, despite a 50 percent message delivery rate as of the system’s most recent test.
“[The test] delivered 15,000 of the 30,000 messages sent … [and] reached three times more subscribers than any previous test,” the statement read. “But [it] also highlighted the diminished performance associated with sending a large number of messages at a time when the cell phone system is heavily loaded.”
Jay Kohl, the executive director for the Division of Public Safety, said he disagreed with the possibility of successfully text messaging all University students in a timely manner.
“You can’t do that. That’s baloney,” Kohl said. “You can’t send 35,000 [text messages] within two minutes … You can send 5,000 in five minutes, then it drops.”
But in addition to the text messaging system, the University has several overlapping procedures in place to deal with an on-campus emergency including alerts via e-mail, Internet, television and radio.
University spokesman EJ Miranda said no single mechanism was sufficient on its own to safeguard Rutgers.
“Whenever a significant incident occurs anywhere around the world, Rutgers, like most agencies, will review the specifics of the incident … and examine our policies, procedures and response capabilities,” he wrote in an e-mail. “[Rutgers University Police Department] and Emergency Services continue to train to respond to various emergency situations — such as an active shooter — in cooperation with our mutual aid partners at the local, county, state and federal levels.”
Kohl spoke to the Rutgers University Student Assembly on Nov. 30 on public safety at the University. His presentation covered the University’s preparations for situations similar to that at Virginia Tech.
“We’re still reeling from Virginia Tech, and we don’t want a one-size-fits-all plan to respond to emergencies here at Rutgers,” Kohl said.
Kohl gave a detailed description of how the Division of Public Safety would respond to an attacker, including five to six on-duty police officers responding to emergencies and alerting authorities both at the University and in surrounding areas.
Helicopters would be ready to bring personnel to the University from North Brunswick, East Brunswick, Highland Park, Piscataway and New Brunswick, as well as members of the National Guard and the FBI, he said.
“We need to recognize that we can’t do it alone,” Kohl said.
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New Ferrum College safety measures tested and working
By Katherine Porter
Iron Blade
Ferrum College, located only 47 miles from Virginia Tech, upgraded its campus security following the deadly April 16 shootings. The upgrades proved valuable nearly a year later when a white man with a gun was spotted on campus Feb. 26.
A campus wide siren sounds - can be heard by the campus owned apartments located off campus - to report a threat on or around campus. Students are expected to go inside and stay there until further notice. The sirens sounded the day the gunman was reported by a housekeeper. No one was injured in that event and students were dismissed early for spring break. A gunman was never found and no additional information was offered.
“Of all the schools I have been too, Ferrum’s campus definitely feels the safest,” said Crystal Akers a Ferrum College senior. “ It’s not just because of the location, or because of the people here, but because of the way the campus puts the students’ safety first by taking every precaution necessary, even if it is something minor; like the weather.”
Although the sirens help notify the campus community, a new cell phone text message service called E2Campus has proven to be the most effective in trying to notify students, faculty, staff and parents of events occurring on Ferrum’s campus including severe weather warnings.
The E2Campus service is available to anyone and 90 percent of of students have cell phones on campus which makes this method of communication the most efficient. The E2Campus service is also available for email alerts.
“With all of the changes that have occurred on the campus in my time at Ferrum, I feel very safe,” said Whitney Fisher, a sophomore at Ferrum. “The E2Campus service is by far the best means of communication I have seen. If it weren’t for the sirens and the E2Campus service, I never would have known there was a crisis on campus on Feb. 26.”
In addition to the sirens and texts, cameras have been mounted in and outside residence halls and other buildings to help track anyone that may be a threat to the college community.
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University of Wisconsin-Madison increase communication methods and awareness plans
By Amanda Hoffstrom
The Daily Cardinal
Although responding to an emergency is important, a year after the Virginia Tech tragedy, University of Wisconsin-Madison officials said prevention is a crucial part of preparation.
“Honestly, I don’t know if anybody can be prepared for that. [Virginia Tech] was horrific, awful—that’s the worst of the worst,” said Dean of Students Lori Berquam. “What I would say we should focus on is prevention.”
Deb Hettrick, a retired UW-Madison police captain who was asked to help develop awareness programs, said police are prepared to respond, but would rather stop any danger beforehand.
“The issue with Virginia Tech was the fact that there were lots of people that felt Cho was a serious threat, but those people did not communicate with each other. What we’re trying to do is make sure that something like that can’t happen.”
Don Mash, executive senior vice president for UW System administration, said UW campuses began to review mass casualty readiness immediately after Virginia Tech.
“Northern Illinois University of course sparked additional concern … the Virginia Tech tragedy sparked changes at NIU and their level of readiness, just like they did on our campuses.”
Many university crisis plan changes came from a July 2007 UW System-wide report chaired by UW-Madison Police Chief Susan Riseling, which reviewed security and suggested improvements for the 26 UW campuses.
UW-Madison developed “WiscAlerts,” a crisis communication plan, which includes mass e-mails, voice mails, reverse 911 to call land-line phones in select geographic areas and Facebook messaging to inform of emergencies. Text messages will be implemented by the end of the year.
WiscAlerts were sent in three incidents since September 2007, most recently to inform of UW-Madison student Brittany Sue Zimmermann’s death on April 2.
As part of Riseling’s report, Hettrick said UW-Madison set up a multidisciplinary threat assessment team to discuss students, faculty, staff and individuals unrelated to UW-Madison who may be a threat.
“[The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] is not a barrier to campus safety—that’s one of the biggest things that we have to tackle with faculty and staff,” Hettrick said.
“If you observe a student or another person doing some kind of behavior that leads you to believe that there’s going to be an issue with them, there is nothing to stop you from telling somebody. But that was an issue at Virginia Tech.”
UWPD also launched a training program in January to help community members recognize these behaviors. Berquam said students should talk about campus safety concerns with students, advisors and deans.
“I think we’ve addressed the big issues that came out of Virginia Tech,” Hettrick said. “We feel like we have done a lot of training and created a lot of awareness, but we need to do more.”
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U. South Carolina committee makes students more aware of problems
By Katie Jones
Daily Gamecock
The University of South Carolina’s Student Senate’s newly formed Safety and Transportation Committee, along with the USCPD, works to make the USC campus as safe as possible in light of the recent student shootings at Auburn University, Northern Illinois University and the University of North Carolina.
Ernie Ellis, director of law enforcement at USC, said an abundance of emergency call boxes, an improved retention rate of officers and great relationships with other police departments are all reasons for USC students to feel safe.
“We’ve got a well-trained police department,” he said. “It’s been our position for years that when a student comes to Carolina, along with their maths, sciences and whatever classes they’re taking, we like them to learn and take away from Carolina some lifelong lessons in how to not become a victim of a crime.”
Ellis stressed that the whole community must be involved in order to be safe.
“Not being a victim of a crime is a community effort,” he said.
Ellis also said he credited the Behavioral Intervention Team with crime prevention.
“I would much rather work twice as many hours to prevent a crime than have to investigate one,” he said. “To investigate a crime means someone has been a victim, someone has been harmed in some way.”
To contribute to the ongoing goal of campus safety, the Senate Safety and Transportation Committee was recently formed as a counterpart to the committee in the Cabinet.
First-year broadcast journalism student Matt Ungar is the committee’s chair.
“The plans are to meet with them to see what we can do to fix some of the problems,” he said. “We’re really excited to get started. The entire committee is excited to get things done.”
Student Body Vice President Meredith Ross, a second-year political science student, said the committee has several responsibilities.
“They’ll meet with USC and Parking Services administrators periodically and deal with issues like campus safety, parking and shuttle services,” she said.
The Senate recently passed a resolution, commemorating University of North Carolina Student Body President Eve Carson.
“It sends our support to UNC and our condolences,” Ross said. “It’s a formal way of saying ‘we’re with you and we’re very sorry.’”
The senate Safety and Transportation Committee will work with different organizations to help make USC’s campus as safe as possible from attacks similar to the ones at UNC, Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech.
In addition to law enforcement and the Senate Safety and Transportation Committee, USC implemented the Carolina ALERT system.
ALERT, an acronym for Automated Local Emergency Response Technology, notifies students of a campus emergency via text message, mass e-mail or voicemail. An outdoor siren that will provide tone and voice alerts is also in the works, according to Ellis.
Ellis said ALERT was implemented because the president recognized the need for management of USC to be involved in emergency issues.
“For years now, our senior leaders come together as a group and we work on the issues of emergency preparedness and how we would deal with an emergency,” Ellis said. “The university has just recently purchased an emergency notification system that not only does text messaging and e-mails in mass, but also has the ability to voice messages.”
Some students said they are concerned about living on a safe campus, especially because of USC’s urban environment.
Olivia Hubert, a first-year print journalism student, said she doesn’t always feel very safe at night.
“Some areas are not well-lit and there are people who aren’t students walking around,” Hubert said.
Hubert said she was unhappy with the lighting outside of the women’s quad.
“I live in the women’s quad and it’s really dark,” she said. “They (the university) could do a little more to make sure we’re safer.”
Katelan Kneeck, a first-year public relations student, also said that poorly lit areas are an issue.
“Around the Strom, where they are doing construction, is scary,” she said. “There aren’t any lights.”
Kneeck said she felt USC’s current policies do prevent crime.
“You have to have your I.D. or your I.D. number to do pretty much anything,” she said.
Both Kneeck and Hubert said familiarizing themselves with the campus and Columbia area would increase their feeling of safety.
Ellis said students need to be aware of their surroundings, emergency call box locations and other safety tips found on the USCPD Web site, www.les.sc.edu/safetytips/index.asp.