Mass Notification for Higher Education.
Tod Schneider · 2010
Emergency notification systems (ENS) have become essential security features in higher education since the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. In that incident, some believe the two-hour gap between the dorm killing and the classroom massacre provided a missed opportunity to warn the entire campus. At the time, the school was reviewing the 3n InstacomTM emergency notification system, which they quickly implemented thereafter (this system was used successfully after a stabbing death at Virginia Tech in January, 2010). Biola University used the same system to successfully alert students when police were pursuing armed subjects near off-campus student housing. Northern Illinois University used its own in-house emergency notification system immediately after a major shooting in February 2008, posting alerts on their website, sending email notifications, and making automated phone calls (but their efforts were of little consequence; although police were on scene in 90 seconds, the killing was over and the shooter committed suicide before they arrived). Northern Illinois has now added text messaging to its system as well. Waterfall Mobile’s web-based AlertU system sends mass emergency text messages for dozens of California community colleges, with no need for special software to be installed on site.