What Kind of Notification System Works Best When Crisis Strikes?

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

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Walter L. Czerniak, associate vice president for information-technology services at Northern Illinois University, was out of town when a gunman killed five students in a classroom last week.

Mr. Czerniak was attending a conference in Arizona where he was learning, among other things, about emergency-notification systems that can send text messages to cellphones—a method that a growing number of colleges have set up since the shootings last spring at Virginia Tech (The Chronicle, October 5, 2007).

But Mr. Czerniak still isn't sure whether such a system would have done much good in keeping people on campus updated as the crisis unfolded if it had been in place at Northern Illinois.

For one thing, he said, he learned that other colleges have had trouble getting people to sign up for emergency-alert services—a problem that college leaders discussed at a recent meeting in San Diego (The Chronicle, February 12).

Most colleges leave the choice of whether to register for the services up to individual students or professors, both because they want to respect the privacy of users and because, in many cases, universities do not have any other way of learning the cell-phone numbers of people on their campuses. At many colleges with the systems, fewer than half the students have signed up.

An added complication is that students change their cell-phone numbers frequently. And, of course, someone has to keep the phone numbers up to date.

And, once installed, systems are not necessarily trouble-free (The Chronicle, December 17, 2007).

False Sense of Security

Mr. Czerniak said he was pleased with the technology Northern Illinois did use. Messages were sent via campus e-mail and voice mail just minutes after the shooting, and officials posted information on the university's Web site.

The first message the university sent on Thursday said: "There has been a report of a possible gunman on campus. Get to a safe area and take precautions until given the all clear. Avoid the King Commons and all buildings in that vicinity."

"What you don't want to do is create a false sense of security," and think that a system is working when it is not, he said. "In any disaster, there's no one good way to get ahold of everybody."

Colleges are in fact looking to use as many different methods as possible to get the word out during emergencies, and not all of them are high-tech. At Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before committing suicide last spring, officials have installed a siren system on the campus that can blast audio messages or high-pitched tones in the event of a crisis.

The siren system was developed for the Defense Department and is also used in biomedical facilities to warn of hazardous spills, said John M. Dorney, manager of business development at Acoustic Technology Inc., which makes a public early-warning system it says is used by Virginia Tech.

One prerecorded message in the system, Mr. Dorney said, is: "There is a shooter on campus. Seek shelter immediately."

The technology isn't cheap. It costs $25,000 for each speaker set, and most campuses would want to install sets at various locations. The systems are high-powered and so can be heard from far away, and they have two separate connections to the campus network, in case one is knocked out, he said.

About a dozen colleges in the United States have purchased a system, said Mr. Dorney, though he would name only Virginia Tech and Washington State University.

Like a Tornado Warning

At Northern Illinois, conventional alarms sounded in some campus buildings just after the shooting last week.

"It was not really clear whether what was meant was 'stay in the building' or 'get out of the building,'" said Jim Killam, adviser to the university's student newspaper, the Northern Star. He described the sound of the alarm as the same as ones used in a tornado warning. "It is the most obnoxious sound known to man," he said.

Mr. Czerniak said that university officials did not trigger any audible alarms. "One of the students, I believe, pulled a fire alarm on his way out of the building," he said.

Security on Campus, the campus-safety watchdog group that has criticized some institutions as responding slowly to crises, praised Northern Illinois officials on Friday.

"They obviously were prepared and took lessons from the Virginia Tech tragedy and other incidents that have occurred since then," said Jonathan Kassa, the group's executive director. The university's multiple strategies for communication, he said, were particularly commendable.

Sara Lipka contributed to this report.