University safety procedures leave students in the dark
Forum | Claire Morgenstern
The day following the Virginia Tech shootings, a message from President Cohon was sent out via e-mail outlining procedures for seeking psychological counseling and reassuring us that we had security on campus. The university wished to provide reassurance that "it couldn't happen here."
Two days later, on April 19, Carnegie Mellon endured its own potential nightmare. A graduate student was apprehended by police with a three-foot-tall, torpedo-shaped metal cylinder in the backseat of his car behind Smith Hall. Police determined that the object was benign — though they would not, or could not, reveal what it was used for. Not exactly a reassuring scenario.
The entire incident lasted less than two hours, and most students were blissfully unaware of it. Officials sent out no e-mail warning, issued no official evacuation or lockdown order. Even now, after 10 days, Official Communications has yet to explain the incident or reassure the campus. No press release has been posted on our own university website, though Media Relations spent hours in the wake of the incident talking to local TV and newspaper reporters, presumably to ensure they had the latest information. University Police literally hung up the phone when asked for information. Despite the horrific events at Virginia Tech and all that we had supposedly "learned" there, Carnegie Mellon made precisely the same potential mistake — cutting off communication to the campus community.
President Cohon's post-Virginia Tech e-mail was similarly ambiguous. Serving more as a liability waiver than an instructional tool, it put the burden on students to seek help in an effort to return to normalcy. Cohon and the administration should first hold up their end of the deal by ensuring campus saftey through effective communication instead of arbitrarily offering counseling.
That e-mail also linked to an obscure university website that — who knew? — outlined campus safety procedures. This site, ehs.cmu.edu, previously firewalled, was only made accessible in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. Still, its utility is limited. A student who visits the site can learn how to prepare for heat rash, SARS, or West Nile virus — but not what to do when he sees someone wielding a handgun.
Environmental Health and Safety's (EH&S) emergency communication consists of AlertNow, a system that enables the department to make 5000 phone calls a minute to alert floor marshals of a campus emergency. This system was not implemented on April 19 — an unforgivable decision in the age of text and instant messaging, PDAs, and podcasts. Furthermore, the system only alerts floor marshals and RAs, enabling those who are already in a building to stay there and offering no instructions to those already outside — exactly what happened at Virginia Tech.
Carnegie Mellon can do better. Days before the Virginia Tech massacre, Princeton University instituted the Connect-ED alert system. It enables campus leaders to send simultaneous alerts to individuals through landline and cellular phones, text messaging, and e-mail in a matter of minutes using contact information provided by each member of the campus community.
While no one could expect such a system to be implemented tomorrow, we have the right to expect basic, essential information to be disseminated promptly through the systems we already have, specifically e-mail and the university website. The university's actions, or lack thereof, are completely insufficient. Clearly, "it could never happen here" is not a valid excuse; hopefully, no student, let alone 33, will have to die before the university improves its safety measures.
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Original Source: <a href=http://www.thetartan.org/2007/4/30/forum/bomb_scare>The Tartan - April 30, 2007</a>
Claire Morgenstern
The Tartan
2007-07-31
Sara Hood
Shawn Wertz <swertz@andrew.cmu.edu>
eng
UNC to get phone alerts
<b>Text messages can notify police</b>
By: Katy Doll, Staff Writer
Posted: 4/20/07
UNC officials are implementing a phone system that alerts campus police when students are in danger.
Beginning this fall, the University will offer the Rave Guardian program, which uses a Global Positioning System timer to notify police of students' locations when needed.
"You can set a timer on your phone that says: 'If I don't reset this timer, I want you to send a signal to campus police,'" said Larry Hicks, director of the Department of Housing and Residential Education.
When the time expires, the phone alerts the student, and if it's not turned off, Rave contacts campus police, who can locate the phone using GPS technology.
In the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting, campus security is on everyone's mind, but UNC officials were planning to implement Rave Guardian before Monday's shootings.
UNC officials are in negotiations with different providers and do not know the exact costs associated with purchasing the program.
Hicks said the housing department plans to offer a reduced price on GPS phones to all on-campus students next year.
There will be a push for incoming freshmen to buy the phones, which will be promoted at C-TOPS.
The program is part of the Rave Wireless system, an existing service that allows students to receive text messages about Blackboard updates and bus routes. The service also has an emergency broadcasting system.
"We could basically send out a broadcast message to all the users of the Rave system," said Brian Payst, director of technology and systems support for the division of student affairs.
Students whose phones aren't equipped for the GPS program can use Rave's other features, such as emergency text messaging. Students can sign up at www.unc.edu/rave.
Rave was established as a pilot program at UNC last summer with a group of about 20 students and now has 364 students, Payst said.
The emergency system never has been used, but officials said they have completed tests of the system.
"We've done tests, and they've gone just fine," Payst said. "You log in and have a Web page, type in your message and hit send. It just takes minutes - seconds even."
Officials also said a campuswide siren system is on its way.
"It certainly wasn't intended to deal with what happened at Virginia Tech, but it can deal with that as well," said James Alty, director of facilities services.
Hicks said safety issues have been at the forefront of UNC's concerns.
"It's basically taking a little bit more emphasis as a result of Virginia Tech," he said. "People want to expedite the plans."
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Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/04/20/University/Unc-To.Get.Phone.Alerts-2870650.shtml>The Daily Tar Heel - April 20, 2007</a>
Katy Doll
2007-07-16
Sara Hood
Kevin Schwartz <kschwartz@unc.edu>
eng