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When this article was first slated for these pages, the Virginia Tech incident was a fairly recent memory and this editorial was designed to chronicle the tragedy at its one year point. However since then there have been other campus crime incidents, most notably the shooting of students at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb, Ill.
It's become clearer that not only is basic security a necessity, i.e., surveillance, access control, intrusion detection and fire alarms, but escape plans and emergency evacuation and notification is equally as critical.
It's a sad state of affairs, because one of the long-honored rites of passage to adulthood is attending college. Parents and children search for the best schools to ensure a solid future in today's world. Safety on college campuses is often overlooked as criteria in choosing a college until an event like the tragedy at Virginia Tech or NIU occurs. While nothing can totally avert that type of tragedy, the matter of safety on campus needs to be examined by parents and students. (See the resources box on page 69 of the campus safety focus in this issue for places to get information on college security.)
One year after the Virginia Tech shooting, great strides have been made to secure campuses and protect students; however much remains to be done.
The fact remains that April 16, 2007 was an ordinary day at Virginia Tech, where normal activities were taking place on a typical college campus in spring. No one could have imagined that a student would kill 30 and turn the gun on himself--marking the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The series of events at Virginia Tech got leaders of other colleges and universities to re-think the issue of safety and security. Then, the incident at NIU came just this winter at the state school about two hours northwest of Chicago. A former student walked in on an auditorium of students, and after he unloaded his multiple weapons, six, including himself, were dead.
There is a fundamental need to put into action efficient enterprise-wide instant notifications, to support day-to-day operations, as well as respond to emergency situations. The challenge when dealing with many of the existing notification systems is relying on the student, resident, staff member or service provider to pre-register. The imperfection of this approach, mainly on a college campus, is that everyone still had to sign up for the service, the system was not automatically updated when contact information changed and was not user-friendly for visitors and guests. There are no clear and easy answers but putting proactive protective actions in place is crucial when securing our college campuses, and technology experts feel the industry is up to the task.
ENS (Enterprise Notification System) from Enterasys Networks Inc., Andover, Mass., has some 4,000 customers worldwide and manufactures an on-demand alert system to reach every online user in a building or on a campus, regardless of whether they are a pre-registered student/employee or a visiting guest/contractor. Each individual connecting to the organization's data network -- managed or not -- is automatically presented with on-screen emergency response information during an emergency notification.
SMS spurs changes
Developed specifically to address the shortcomings of e-mail, voice mail or SMS (short message service or text messaging) notification systems, messages are sent in seconds with a single click.
Once that happens, all Web communications redirect to the ENS Web page where real-time notification messages are displayed and then returned to their originally requested Web page.
"This technology is affordable and does not interrupt the network," said Trent Waterhouse, vice president of Marketing for Enterasys. "It captures anyone and everyone on campus, including visitors and employees alike and is tailored to specific log-in information."
The University of Bern in Switzerland, long an Enterasys customer, is using their NAC solution to authenticate, assess and authorize its networked campus IT infrastructure. They credit Enterasys with keeping them safe and providing them trouble-free interoperability with other vendors' products to protect existing investments as they expand and address new requirements.
Delaware State University in Dover uses safety as a differential in recruiting students. They selected Honeywell's ProWatch Security Management System, an access control integrated solution.
"Mobile readers are available for the encryption process," said Chris Meiter, director of Business Development, Access and Video Systems for Honeywell.
"Timing is ramped up as you secure your facilities and everything is done in real time," Meiter said. The integration of ProWatch with the student accounts system saves the university thousands of hours per year in data entry and lost labor time while providing an increased security level. If a student is expelled or a member of the staff is fired or retires, the individual's access rights can be immediately canceled with ProWatch.
We don't live in a perfect world and never will, but one year after Virginia Tech and months after the NIU shootings we have learned new lessons about security and the importance of campuswide notification.
author: By Ileene-Marie Mooney