Northwestern officials are still working on a new plan to notify students in the event of an emergency, and said they hope to have a revised disaster preparedness system in place sometime early next year.
“We’re currently looking at two services and have already begun work with a firm that will allow us to send emergency messages via text messaging, an automatic call out and e-mail,” said Alan Cubbage, vice president of university relations.
Currently, NU relies on campus-wide e-mail and online announcements to inform students of an emergency. While Cubbage said the current system is adequate, he said the new system would be more effective. NU’s bulk mail service takes a long time to send e-mails to the entire community, and, in the event students are away from a computer, web announcements go unread, he said.
To register for Winter Quarter classes, all students will be required to provide their personal phone numbers for the new system, which will be implemented sometime after the first of the year.
“Everyone has e-mail, we know that,” Cubbage said. “That’s why we will be requiring all students and recommending very strongly that all faculty and staff provide us with an emergency number so we can reach everyone, personally, in case of an emergency.”
While some students may not have text messaging service, the addition of a faster e-mail service and automated phone calls should enable the revised emergency measures to reach the entire community, Cubbage said.
“What we’re moving to is a system, to use the Facebook term, ‘poke you,'” he said. “We will be sending, calling, and e-mailing students, faculty and staff more quickly.”
NU also plans to implement an outdoor warning system during Winter Quarter, with speakers around campus to broadcast emergency announcements.
“What we have to do before we can actually run this is collect your emergency information,” said Mary Desler, associate vice president and dean of student affairs. “You will soon be getting e-mails from the registrar about putting that in CAESAR. If you don’t there will be some serious consequences, like holding (a student’s) registration for winter.”
The changes to current emergency communication procedures come several months after April’s shootings at Virginia Tech, where a student gunman killed 32 people.
“I think Virginia Tech clearly was a wake-up call for anyone on a college campus anywhere in this country,” Cubbage said. “All that a university can do is be as prepared as it possibly can. But, if you use Virginia Tech as your measuring stick, it’s going to be virtually impossible for an institution to prevent any determined shooter from wreaking havoc.”
University Police assistant chief Dan McAleer said the new system will be beneficial.
“Any kind of mass communication system that allows us to get to the members of our community in a timely manner about what the emergency is and how we will respond will certainly be helpful for us,” McAleer said.
Weinberg senior Diane Chan said she would not mind giving her number to the university.
“I think if they took too many liberties with how they defined ’emergency’ then I’d be bothered by putting my personal phone number into their system,” she said. “I wouldn’t want them calling my cell phone if it wasn’t an emergency.”
But Cubbage said even the most comprehensive notification system has its shortcomings. For example, new technology could be rendered useless by a power outage or computer system failure.
“Part of my emergency communications kit in my office is a couple reams of brightly colored paper, masking tape, and magic markers,” he said.
The Daily’s Matt Spector contributed to this report.
Reach Tommy Giglio at [email protected].
