Administrators at UCLA have begun implementing a plan with aims to provide comprehensive notification to students on campus in the event of an emergency. We applaud the quick action of the administration.
Expected to be effective in part beginning next month and fully operational in January 2008, the campus emergency notification system is expected to provide a number of new methods for consolidating and expediting communication to students, faculty, staff and emergency response teams.
Among the features of the new plan are provisions for a priority text messaging system. Students enrolled in the program could be contacted and notified of a campus emergency within 15 minutes.
The text messaging plan is a tremendous step forward and is much more practical than the existing system that uses e-mail as its sole form of electronic communication in an emergency.
Priority text messages ensure that students will be notified immediately during a time of crisis, bypassing any increased flurry of incoming calls or regular text messages.
The soon-to-be-announced plan also includes arrangements for students to be informed of the text messaging program, which is a free resource for UCLA affiliates.
Parents and students alike will be contacted by Chancellor Block and will also find advertisements on student-focused Web sites and in the Daily Bruin.
Resources have also been allocated to provide an incentive to help promote enrollment in the program, including offers of financial deposits to the BruinCards of selected students who enroll before Dec. 14.
The text messaging plan alone is expected to cost $132,000, but this is a small price to pay for the expected efficacy and perceived necessity of such a plan.
An additional $150,000 has been allocated in the plan to cover the cost of installing and maintaining three outdoor notification speakers, each with an audible range of 500-800 feet.
The speakers, which will be controlled by a central computer system, will be installed in three separate zones.
The zone 1 speaker will be installed on the north end of Rieber Hall on the Hill, the zone 2 speaker at the southwest corner of Drake Stadium, and the third speaker in the Royce Quad area near the Humanities building.
The efforts and financial funding devoted to the expansion of campus safety systems is a comforting move on the part of university administrators and is therefore commendable.
While the speaker systems and electronic notification systems represent great strides in the development of UCLA security, great portions of campus remain untouched by the outdoor speakers’ range and more funding and planning will be required to extend these forms of security ““ recently deemed adequate ““ to all of campus.
However, it is still reassuring to have evidence that UCLA is taking cues on campus security from other universities across the country.
The new security measures are particularly reassuring in light of the recent six-month anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech.
Students and the community can rest assured knowing that UCLA administrators take campus security seriously and are quick to implement new policies that reflect recent security problems on college campuses.