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More than $1 million in equipment and technology -- including an emergency alert system -- will be installed this fiscal year as part of an ongoing effort to improve campus safety for students, faculty, and staff.
As many as 40 outdoor video cameras and enhancements to call boxes are part of the package that will assist in monitoring the campus. An emergency notification system, separately funded by the Division of Business and Finance, will be configured to send mass e-mails, text messages to cell phones, and voice messages to cell phones. An outdoor alert system will include siren tones and voice commands.
For more information about the system and to register personal cell phone numbers with the University, go to www.sc.edu/emergency. As of mid August, about 18,000 students and more than 2,000 faculty and staff had registered contact information
"These improvements are not a knee-jerk reaction to the shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech," said Ernie Ellis, director of law enforcement and safety at the University. "We've been researching this equipment for some time as part of the logical next step in upgrading the campus safety call boxes."
Law enforcement and safety personnel have been researching video systems for the past year to identify the best equipment for the campus' needs. Existing call boxes on campus will be modified to make them more visible and will be equipped with public address system speakers; some will become mounting posts for surveillance video cameras. As they have in the past, campus safety administrators will work with student government in determining where additional call boxes are needed.
"I am extremely pleased with the efforts put forth by the team of administrators, University Technology Services staff, and student leadership to complete the new emergency notification system prior to the fall semester commencing," said Nick Payne, student government president. "The system will provide faculty and students with a direct means of communication that includes detailed instructions of what to do in case of an emergency."
The network of outdoor video cameras will be monitored 24/7 --additional staff will be hired for monitoring -- with certain areas getting priority scrutiny depending on time of day.
"Video surveillance has helped us decrease the number of car break-ins and other property crimes in the Blossom Street garage by 80 percent," Ellis said. "Each camera is like posting an officer to keep watch in a location 24 hours a day, so it's like we'll be adding the equivalent of several dozen patrol officers across campus."
No additional patrol officers will be hired this fiscal year, Ellis said, but the size of the patrol force inevitably will increase as the campus grows.
In addition to the campus safety equipment and technology improvements, a campus Emergency Preparedness Committee of senior University officials has been meeting monthly to discuss contingency plans for a number of potential situations. The campus has also hired its first full-time emergency management coordinator.
A separate Crisis Communications Team has been meeting weekly to map out communications plans in the event of emergencies caused by weather, disease, or other disasters.
8/2007
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