Registration for alert system at 62 percent
By Mary Georgevich
In the wake of last Thursday's fatal college shooting in Illinois, the number of university members registered for Santa Clara's campus alert system remains well below the aim of 100 percent participation, with roughly 62.6 percent of the community currently registered. However, the number of registrants has increased by 16.3 percent since the start of the school year.
When classes began in September, not even half of the campus community had registered for the program. Currently, there are 3,890 students, 410 faculty and 708 staff registered out of nearly 8,000 campus members, according to Vice Provost for Student Life Jeanne Rosenberger.
The university's latest plan to encourage registration is by using the residential learning communities and department chairs to spread the word, said Rosenberger.
The system, which is run by Connect-Ed, requires members of the campus community to enroll on eCampus. Then, when a campus-wide emergency alert needs to be distributed, the system sends simultaneous mass e-mails, text messages and recorded voice messages to those enrolled. Messages are estimated to reach all participants within 30 minutes, though some were circulated as quickly as two minutes during last year's trial runs, Rosenberger said in a September article in The Santa Clara.
Rosenberger said not everyone who has signed up would be expected to receive the messages in the case of an emergency because people could check their e-mail infrequently or turn off their cell phones. However, she anticipates the message would be spread by word-of-mouth. The school had considered making enrollment in the program required for registration for winter quarter classes, but decided against it, Rosenberger said.
"Anybody who watches the news will see this is really important," she said.
After the Feb. 14 shooting at Northern Illinois University, where 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak killed five students and injured more than a dozen more before killing himself, police officers arrived within 90 seconds, and the school's emergency alert system sent out a message to those on campus to get to a safe area, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Rosenberger said Santa Clara has a similar emergency response plan in place.
"For something like a shooter on campus, we will rely heavily on local law enforcement," she said. "I would anticipate a rapid response."
The administration has spoken with the Santa Clara police in crafting this plan, and training for faculty and staff on how to respond to emergencies has been ongoing, Rosenberger said.
Contact Mary Georgevich at (408) 554-4546 or mgeorgevich@scu.edu.