Collegiate Times

In the wake of the tragedy on April 16, many colleges and universities are increasing security measures on their campuses.

One of these schools, the City University of New York, is creating an alert system similar to the one established at Virginia Tech over the summer.

CUNY is currently accepting bids for a notification system that would contact students by text message or e-mail in the event of an emergency. Though the university already has the ability to send mass e-mails to its student body, the administration would like to add the ability to use text messages to contact their community. 

GeorgeMason University, which has four campuses in Northern Virginia, has also begun using a text message alert system. In their system, subscribers will be notified about health and safety issues by text and e-mail and will also have the ability to sign up for alerts related to weather and traffic.

Other security increases on George Mason's campuses will include additional police presence on campus, training to help faculty and staff recognize troubled behavior and addition of indoor and outdoor loudspeakers to broadcast information in an emergency.

"At last count we have about 10,000 of our 40,000 students signed up for the alert system," said J. Thomas Hennessey, chief of staff of the George Mason Executive Council. "But we just started last week. If we have 30 percent of our population signed up by the end of September, we'll have gone a long way."

At the University of Colorado at Boulder, a Task Force was designated to develop security upgrades after April 16. When students returned to campus, the university asked them to sign up for a text messaging system designed to send alerts of 132 characters or less in case of an emergency. Colorado's one-year contract with Rave Alert of New York cost the university $18,000, plus six cents for each message sent.

The University of South Carolina has initiated a comprehensive security update mostly in the form of monitored video cameras. Forty cameras are being installed in outdoor locations, and the current emergency call boxes around campus will be upgraded. The cameras will be monitored 24/7 by security personnel. A new alert system has also been created at USC, with over 20,000 students and staff already signed up.