Technology continues to benefit campus safety, with the new trend of alert sirens being installed on college campuses across the country.

Sirens are proving beneficial because they make use of rapid deployment and add another means of message delivery, said Chris Coffin, CEO of Digital Acoustics, a company that installs audible notification systems.

‘You’re going to get the best response,’ Coffin said. ‘It’s going to be heard. If the coverage is there, it’s going to be heard.’

The University of Iowa, Washington State University and the University of Houston have all paid for these systems. Colleges with smaller student populations, such as Haverford College in Haverford, Pa. and St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia have also acquired similar systems.

At Syracuse University, such a system is being discussed. Mike Kearns, manager of technology and security services in SU’s Department of Public Safety, said they have recommended purchasing a siren system that also has voice message capabilities. Kearns stressed the importance of the voice component – saying it could be confusing to have just a siren sound.

‘The siren system not only reaches out to all the transients on campus but also communicates immediately to anybody that’s outside,’ Kearns continued.

A siren system was set off on the day of the Virginia Tech shootings a year ago.

They did more than simply emit a screeching noise. They broadcast an ‘audible message asking students to seek further information,’ said Mark Owczarski, director of news and information for Virginia Tech and 1986 Syracuse University alumnus.

Owczarski said the campus originally installed them in the fall of 2005 through a federal grant that gives money to campuses for weather alert systems. The sirens were originally intended to notify students of severe weather, Owczarski said.

‘These kinds of systems are very common in (schools located in) Tornado Alley,’ he said.

He noted that Virginia Tech was unlike SU, pointing out the fact that Virginia Tech boasts a 250-acre campus where a significant portion of students, faculty and staff don’t spend their days in a building.

‘It is a way to reach to people who are outdoors and is most useful for notifying those in the agricultural fields,’ Owczarski said.

Owczarski also pointed out that the sirens are not acting alone, and they are a part of what he called a multi-prong emergency system. He said there are other security measures in place at Virginia Tech such as text and instant messaging, telephone messages, e-mails, using the school Web site home page and the local public media.

The system installed at U. Iowa also serves a dual purpose, doubling as a weather notification device as well, similar to Virginia Tech, said Chuck Green, director of U. Iowa’s Department of Public Safety.

He said the system there is capable of an automated voice message and a live voice message.

U. Iowa installed the system in the fall of 2007, for approximately $150,000. The sirens were part of an entire security update. The campus also installed new cameras and more public safety personnel.

‘We hope that we will be able to respond to any situation,’ Green said.

Other measures suggested by Kearns at SU include a closed-circuit television system similar to the one used in London, although not to that great of an extent.

Even without the proposed siren and closed-circuit TV system, Kearns said the campus is prepared for an emergency.

‘It’s a sad reality that if someone is determined, in today’s society, there’s no way to stop them,’ Kearns said. ‘You can put certain safeguards up that will hopefully alert people that something is going to happen.’

Current security measures center around Orange Alert, a mass notification system. A test of e-mails and text messages will be issued today at 8 a.m.

adbrow03@syr.edu

Published on April 16, 2008 at 12:00 pm