CU looks to update alert system
By Brittany Anas, Daily Camera
Published August 28, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
The University of Colorado is considering whether it should install indoor and outdoor public address systems and use electronic message boards in its dorms and busy buildings as extra ways to alert students and employees of campus emergencies, the chancellor announced Wednesday.
CU is also looking at speeding up its mass e-mail delivery system, Boulder campus Chancellor Bud Peterson said in a Tuesday memo to faculty and staff members.
Increasing safety on campus has been a top priority at colleges and universities nationwide following the April 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, where a student gunman killed 32 people before committing suicide.
"The cataclysm challenged all of American higher education to re-examine campus safety and emergency communications," Peterson wrote in the memo. "The University of Colorado at Boulder was no exception."
Soon after the Virginia Tech tragedy, officials at CU called on a panel to study how the campus responds to emergencies and how communication could be improved during such events.
The university last fall launched an emergency text-message system that sends alerts to the cell phones of students and employees signed up for the program. A software update will allow the university to add voice messaging to the mobile-phone alerts later this fall.
There are 13,600 people signed up to receive campus emergency alerts, about 35 percent of the campus community, according to CU officials who want to see higher subscription rates to the free service.
CU officials are reviewing extra safety options and a follow-up report from the campus safety panel is due in October, Peterson said.
The school is considering using electronic message boards already in place in its law and business buildings and the University Memorial Center for emergency alerts. Other places where the university is looking at installing message boards include dorms, large classroom buildings, the recreation center, and the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society.
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