TextMessage Warnings Broadcast During NIU Campus Danger

This carefully orchestrated effort to get the word out was largely a response to last April’s shootings at Virginia Tech, where a student went on a rampage that killed 33 people, including himself. As campuses around the nation grappled with the horror of that massacre, administrators at NIU took their own preparations to a new level, going so far as to prepare the hypothetical template that could be used for near-instantaneous communication in an emergency. Thursday, after a gunman fired into an ocean science class in a large lecture hall, officials kept working the system to keep people informed, posting 12 messages during the next 2 1/2 hours:

3:40 p.m.: All classes on the DeKalb campus are canceled for tonight. …
3:50 p.m.: It has been confirmed that there has been a shooting on campus. … People are urged not to come to campus.
4:10 p.m.: Campus police report that the scene is secure. …
4:31 p.m.: All NIU students are asked to call their parents as soon as possible.

‘A Lot Has Changed’

Immediate alerts became a priority after Virginia Tech was criticized for a slow response that some said might have given the gunman more time to kill. However, communication is only part of a wholesale rethinking about how to prepare for the worst, an effort that has swept campuses across the nation.
Mental health professionals studied how to spot warning signs in students coping with mental illnesses. Privacy laws were re-examined so officials get more information on potentially dangerous students. Gun laws were reviewed.
“A lot has changed,” said Catherine Bath, vice president of Security On Campus, a nonprofit group that has pushed for increased campus safety. “They are looking at how to handle red flag scenarios from students and faculty.”
Indeed, a week after the Virginia Tech shootings, NIU President John G. Peters said in a letter to the campus community that officials were reviewing their security and mental health policies.
The school has been so focused on campus security that a national training conference on the topic is scheduled at the campus in June, Bath said.

Don’t Hesitate

On Thursday, the university’s new emergency alert procedures seemed to work, officials and witnesses said, with students and faculty learning about the shootings on their BlackBerries and voice mail. While there is no system to send text messages to cell phones, some people have their e-mail forwarded there.
“Each time we had an update, we utilized all of the available communication technology to deliver that same information,” said NIU spokesperson Melanie Magara.
“This is what we had asked schools to do after Virginia Tech happened. Don’t think about warning your students when something like this happens. Just warn them as soon as possible,” Bath said.

When Danger Arises

Since Virginia Tech, there have been a number of campus shootings. Last week, a student fatally shot two other students during class at Louisiana Technical College. In December, two graduate students at Louisiana State University were killed.
In November, a University of Chicago graduate student was shot to death on a sidewalk near the school, in a spate of violence that began on campus.

The U. of C. is among the many universities across the country that added text-messaging alert systems after Virginia Tech. Officials used it for the first time after the November shooting, but not until nine hours after the incident occurred, drawing criticism for not alerting the campus more quickly.
About 7,700 of the 28,000 students, faculty and staff are signed up for the system, and officials are working on ways to increase that number, said spokesperson Julie Peterson.

“Virginia Tech caused all universities to really look at their emergency response processes,” Peterson said. “The technology allows us to communicate more quickly and more thoroughly than we used to be able to do, and people expect us to use that technology effectively.”

Preparing for the Worst

Jodi Sticken, who teaches in NIU’s College of Education, said the university has been proactive in making the DeKalb campus safer. She said that since a December scare on campus, administrators have tried to help faculty and staff learn how to identify potentially troubled students and prepare for emergencies. They have held meetings, placed training video on the Web and distributed booklets with color-coded tabs that identify different emergency situations.However, she said, short of turning the campus into a prison, it’s hard to see how it could be made more secure.
“It’s just awful,” Sticken said health club. “I’ve got to say, I really believe that the administration has tried to put into place all the possible scenario reactions they possibly could. What can you do?”