Collegiate Times

Though ensuring student safety has always been a priority, the events last April 16 has served as a call to action for many universities.

At Emory & Henry College in Southwestern Virginia, students, faculty, staff and parents were notified in a mass message within minutes after a bomb threat was called into the university. The private school put its new system in place following the shootings, sending information to cell phones, e-mail addresses, pagers, and digital signs across campus.

Dirk Moore, Emory & Henry's director of public relations, said that the university had been planning changes to its emergency response policies long before April 16.

"The tragedy sort of expedited it," Moore said. "There were drills before, but not campus-wide. The bomb scare was the first time we had employed it on a serious basis, and it seemed to work as it should."

The actions taken by Emory & Henry mark just one example of many schools nationwide attempting to renovate their crisis management and emergency warning plans. In terms of alert systems, students expect the school to provide as much information as soon as possible.

At George Mason University in Fairfax, a similar alert system has been established. Using 'Mason Alert,' authorized personnel will send registered members instant alerts, free of charge, providing information on what has happened, what should be done and who should be contacted, all in the event of an emergency.

Dan Walsch, George Mason university press secretary, said that the alerts tests have been successful thus far and that he is pleased with the number of users registered.

"In round figures, the number is 13,000 people signed up," Walsch said. "We are excited about that, because we feel like many of the people who are not signing up will hear through word of mouth anyway."

In addition to the implementation of the alert system, Mason's Board of Visitors also adopted a policy that prevents students and faculty members from bringing weapons to campus. This policy, which excludes law enforcement officers, also denies building access to members of the community who have weapons.

Walsch said that the new policy prohibiting guns on campus is not new to the university, but rather provides clarity for students since the previous one appeared ambiguous.

GMU is also affiliated with the Commonwealth Homeland Security Foundation, a non-profit corporation focused on improving security and preparedness in Virginia. The CHSF works to improve campus readiness measures through research and grants.

During Tech's internal security review process, the University of Maryland and the University of California-Berkley were both studied specifically for their safety measures. The Security Infrastructure Working Group published its findings in a report to university President Charles Steger.

Most notable to the committee at Maryland was the university's security operations center, where 220 closed circuit televisions are monitored 24 hours a day. The center is visited by other police departments and national agencies, including the FBI, and has been functioning since its installation in the 1990s in response to a series of armed robberies.

Though cameras were originally only placed on code blue phone poles, they have since expanded and are now located on the exteriors of residence halls at Maryland. Additionally, a special program is used to ensure that the cameras cannot see or record any activity inside the building, a measure taken to protect personal privacy. The system also takes photographs of all vehicles and occupants that enter the campus.

At UC-Berkeley, minimal security cameras are in place, and those that are must first be approved by the police department. According to the report, most cameras are interior, and are used as theft and vandalism deterrents.

Aside from surveillance devices, UC-Berkeley has also employed techniques to train students, faculty and staff to seek shelter, shut doors and listen whenever the mass notification system is activated. This procedure is tested monthly.

Students are also encouraged to program the UC-Berkeley dispatch number into their cell phones, an action that would give them direct interaction with the police department in emergency situations.

The main quandary facing university officials in their attempts to enhance campus security is the openness of a college setting.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a campus lockdown has been deemed infeasible, because of the university's large size.  Instead, campus officials are focusing on prevention and mental health education.

It is also believed that a total lockdown at a campus could potentially be harmful.

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