In Search Of Answers About Campus Security

May 29, 2007 4:23 PM

Many schools and universities are looking for better ways to get the word out to students and others on their campuses when an incident occurs. On large campuses such as Virginia Tech, which has more than 26,000 students, it is unlikely that any one method of sending out news will reach everybody. Some students may be in classrooms, others may be napping in their residence halls; some may be strolling across campus; others may be hunkered down in the library for uninterrupted study.

Among the systems that schools around the nation are using or considering are ones that can deliver messages by intercom, telephone, computer or wireless devices. Using a variety of delivery methods, a school is more likely to get the message out in ways that students are accustomed to using. "Universities need to know how students on their campuses [like to be communicated with]," University of Central Oklahoma President W. Roger Webb tells the Senate Homeland Security committee following the Virginia Tech massacre. "By using all available methods, including the social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as third-party mass communications systems such as voice mail and text messaging, we improve our odds of reaching our students on campus in the event of an emergency."

Steven Healy, director of public safety at Princeton University and president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, urged the committee to support the creation of a National Center for Campus Public Safety, a proposal that came out of a U.S. Justice Department National Summit on Campus Public Safety. "A national center will be an invaluable resource for all who have a stake in campus public safety," Healy says.

This article is excerpted from the current issue of American School & University, a sister publication. The complete article is available here.

The May issue of Access Control & Security Systems includes a roundup of products useful for emergency communication in a campus setting.

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