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March 27, 2008, 11:35 AM ET
Campuses Turn to Sirens as Part of Upgraded Emergency Alert Systems
An informal survey on an e-mail list for college technology leaders this week confirmed a growing interest in installing sirens on college campuses to enhance emergency-notification systems. A free Chronicle article this week found that more than a dozen colleges have installed such systems in the past year.
The quick survey of members of an Educause e-mail list identified at least 14 campuses that have outdoor siren systems, most of which can also deliver spoken messages that can be heard over a wide area of campus. Another nine colleges said they are in the process of setting up a siren system. Two colleges said they were not interested — one because the college is in an urban area where officials deemed it would not be effective, and another that said it is situated in a residential area.
As of the fall of 2007, about 23 percent of campuses said they had a siren system, according to the Campus Computing Project, an annual survey of how colleges use information technology. But the number of campuses with sirens seems to have grown since then, as colleges have reviewed their emergency-notification strategies in the wake of the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech last spring. That tragedy, in which a student killed 32 people before committing suicide, led many administrators to imagine how they would communicate with their diverse mix of students, professors, and staff members if a similar tragedy took place on their campuses.
One official who answered the e-mail survey this week warned that the outdoor siren systems do not do a good job of getting a message to people inside of buildings, since the sound does not always carry clearly into buildings. And many officials interviewed by The Chronicle this month said that sirens should be part of a broader alert strategy that includes other technologies — including text-message systems and old-fashioned telephone hotlines for emergencies.
Does your campus have a siren system? Are they worth the cost? —Jeffrey R. Young
Categories: Security, Leadership
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