University safety procedures leave students in the dark
Forum | Claire Morgenstern
The day following the Virginia Tech shootings, a message from President Cohon was sent out via e-mail outlining procedures for seeking psychological counseling and reassuring us that we had security on campus. The university wished to provide reassurance that "it couldn't happen here."
Two days later, on April 19, Carnegie Mellon endured its own potential nightmare. A graduate student was apprehended by police with a three-foot-tall, torpedo-shaped metal cylinder in the backseat of his car behind Smith Hall. Police determined that the object was benign — though they would not, or could not, reveal what it was used for. Not exactly a reassuring scenario.
The entire incident lasted less than two hours, and most students were blissfully unaware of it. Officials sent out no e-mail warning, issued no official evacuation or lockdown order. Even now, after 10 days, Official Communications has yet to explain the incident or reassure the campus. No press release has been posted on our own university website, though Media Relations spent hours in the wake of the incident talking to local TV and newspaper reporters, presumably to ensure they had the latest information. University Police literally hung up the phone when asked for information. Despite the horrific events at Virginia Tech and all that we had supposedly "learned" there, Carnegie Mellon made precisely the same potential mistake — cutting off communication to the campus community.
President Cohon's post-Virginia Tech e-mail was similarly ambiguous. Serving more as a liability waiver than an instructional tool, it put the burden on students to seek help in an effort to return to normalcy. Cohon and the administration should first hold up their end of the deal by ensuring campus saftey through effective communication instead of arbitrarily offering counseling.
That e-mail also linked to an obscure university website that — who knew? — outlined campus safety procedures. This site, ehs.cmu.edu, previously firewalled, was only made accessible in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. Still, its utility is limited. A student who visits the site can learn how to prepare for heat rash, SARS, or West Nile virus — but not what to do when he sees someone wielding a handgun.
Environmental Health and Safety's (EH&S) emergency communication consists of AlertNow, a system that enables the department to make 5000 phone calls a minute to alert floor marshals of a campus emergency. This system was not implemented on April 19 — an unforgivable decision in the age of text and instant messaging, PDAs, and podcasts. Furthermore, the system only alerts floor marshals and RAs, enabling those who are already in a building to stay there and offering no instructions to those already outside — exactly what happened at Virginia Tech.
Carnegie Mellon can do better. Days before the Virginia Tech massacre, Princeton University instituted the Connect-ED alert system. It enables campus leaders to send simultaneous alerts to individuals through landline and cellular phones, text messaging, and e-mail in a matter of minutes using contact information provided by each member of the campus community.
While no one could expect such a system to be implemented tomorrow, we have the right to expect basic, essential information to be disseminated promptly through the systems we already have, specifically e-mail and the university website. The university's actions, or lack thereof, are completely insufficient. Clearly, "it could never happen here" is not a valid excuse; hopefully, no student, let alone 33, will have to die before the university improves its safety measures.
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Original Source: <a href=http://www.thetartan.org/2007/4/30/forum/bomb_scare>The Tartan - April 30, 2007</a>
Claire Morgenstern
The Tartan
2007-07-31
Sara Hood
Shawn Wertz <swertz@andrew.cmu.edu>
eng
Internet plays powerful role in wake of Va. Tech
Forum | Tartan Board
Amid the chaos of what is already being called the Virginia Tech massacre, the Internet was a steady flow of fairly accurate information. Blogs — typically the anti-news source — were what helped piece together the events of early last Monday. Facebook — the social networking site of the century — was what helped friends and family know loved ones were okay. AIM idle times — usually an annoyance to anyone who wants to talk to someone — were identifiers to possible whereabouts for specific times. Wikipedia — what you shouldn't quote in your class paper — garnered a timetable of events from the aforementioned online "sources." News sites — reliable sources — assembled information about victims from their online profiles.
Most of us were affected by the shootings at Columbine in April 1999; as middle schoolers and junior high students, a high school shooting wasn't something to which we could easily turn a blind eye. Yet the shootings at Virginia Tech seem different, as we are all more closely linked by our similarities — we are all college students — and by our constant connection to the Internet. As we have seen with the deaths of students on our own campus, a Facebook wall can become a memorial; and as students who don't know the deceased read the walls, it's often an additional cause for legitimate sorrow. Facebook, and the Internet as a whole, lets us get a little bit closer to knowing the people who have died, and lets us understand what victims' friends are going through, too. The walls of the Virginia Tech massacre victims are experiencing the same flood of visitors, and a lot of it stands to show that as a generation, we are capable of coming together to support each other.
ABCNews.com 's April 16 article about online developments included bits from some students' online postings; one included a request for a Facebook group that calls to keep the facts of the incident straight. Another posting from ABCNews.com's article said that people from all over the world were soliciting videos of personal reactions from students via the Internet. The way the Internet has been utilized by our generation for the Virginia Tech Massacre is telling. While great in some ways, the Internet cannot be a substitute for action or an acceptable replacement for tasteful behavior.
The sheer volume of people expressing condolences is amazing and, perhaps, comforting. At the same time, the deluge of Internet gestures makes each one progressively more meaningless. A group search for "Virginia Tech" and "pray" on Facebook returns over 500 results. Except for two groups, at least the first five pages of search returns for just "Virginia Tech" are some kind of remembrance groups. The sentiment is spectacular if it's based in fact or action, but it is important to remember that starting a Facebook group does not necessarily solve problems or incite real action. Ultimately, human contact is what will help us all move on from this tragedy, not staring at a computer screen.
The varied uses for the Internet in the case of the massacre backs arguments from both sides about the Internet: It globalizes, but also singularizes; brings people together, but also prevents actual involvement. We encourage students to use the Internet to help grieve and show support for the Virginia Tech community. When grappling with such terrible loss, the Internet is an excellent tool — it just shouldn't be the only tool. Good things come from the Internet being used to its fullest capacity, and so do weaker things. We are the Internet generation. We just need to learn to harness the power of the Internet, to use it to unite, but to not expect impossible things from it.
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.thetartan.org/2007/4/23/forum/boarded2> The Tartan - April 23, 2007</a>
Tartan Board
2007-07-31
Sara Hood
Shawn Wertz <swertz@andrew.cmu.edu>
eng
How Carnegie Mellon is keeping campus safe after VA Tech massacre
News | Sarah Mogin
Wednesday night, students and faculty gathered by the Fence. In the midst of the cold and windy weather, 70 hands cupped 70 flickering flames as the Carnegie Mellon community mourned the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Last Monday, 23-year-old Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed himself and 32 others in the deadliest shooting executed by a single person in United States history. The attacks occurred in a dormitory and an academic building, both located on the Virginia Tech campus.
The vigil by the Fence is only one example of the ways in which colleges and universities nationwide are coming together to honor those slain.
"Students totally took the lead on creating this opportunity to express themselves after the Virginia Tech shootings," said Jonathan Kroll, housefellow for Morewood Gardens. "I think it definitely helps with the grieving process."
The vigil began at 9 p.m. with a moment of silence. As the group grew in number, participants continued to light the candles of those who gathered along the periphery of the crowd.
Student Body President Karl Sjogren passed out lyrics to to "Lean on Me" and the group then joined in song. After that, students and faculty members, one of whom was an alumna of Virginia Tech, took turns speaking informally.
Two hours earlier, the Hillel Jewish University Center (JUC) of Pittsburgh hosted a vigil led by rabbi Jamie Gibson of Temple Sinai.
Gibson led those attending in song and prayer, and students read prayers as well. During the vigil, Gibson gave personal attention to each of the departed.
"We knew that we wanted to read the names of every single person whose name had been released," said Sahar Oz, the JUC's assistant director. "And we also wanted to say a few things about them."
Students lit candles for each of the known victims: Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor; Reema Samaha, an 18-year-old first-year; Kevin Granata, a biomechanics researcher and a leader in his field; and 26 others.
The group also lit three candles for the victims whose names had not yet been released.
Oz found Librescu's death particularly troubling. Librescu, a professor at Virginia Tech, was shot while protecting his students by guarding the entrance to his classroom.
"He was murdered on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is an occasion observed around the world," Oz said. "It sent shock and a tremendous sense of loss to the Jewish community."
The tragedy resonated in particular with several Carnegie Mellon students in the JUC who met Virginia Tech students last May while on a Birthright trip to Israel.
"One of the things we did immediately was try to reach the eight students who went on this trip from Virginia Tech," Oz said. All eight were unharmed.
"We had that added element of emotional proximity," Oz said.
The modern languages department is also making plans to reach out to Virginia Tech, in part because so many of the shootings took place in foreign-language classrooms.
"We feel closer," said Sono Hayes-Takano, a Japanese professor.
"We've been brainstorming," Hayes-Takano said. "People in MLSAC, [Modern Languages Student Advisory Committee], they're thinking about raising money for [the victims'] memorial fund."
Beyond the campus community, the Internet has helped many feel connected to the Virginia Tech victims.
"I think the Internet in this case has been a tremendous asset," Oz said. "I think Facebook is a great example."
Profiles of victims on Facebook, in addition to those on news sites such as CNN and BBC News, have helped humanize the tragedy.
"We don't want these victims to become statistics," Oz said. "Keep it personal."
But with such accessibility, fear is often not too far behind.
"There is this sense of, 'It could happen to me,' " Oz said.
Students feeling vulnerable might benefit from becoming familiar with Carnegie Mellon's security policy.
"We have trained a certain number of people ... in every building," said Madelyn Miller, director of Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) at the university.
RAs, building marshals, and other qualified individuals are among those who have received training, she said.
EH&S has had a system called AlertNow in place for the past couple of years. AlertNow enables EH&S to make 5000 phone calls in about a minute, which could help alert floor marshals of a campus emergency.
"Not everybody knows that we have these procedures in place," Miller said.
In the past, EH&S's procedures were kept online behind a firewall. The procedures were privatized because they included the cell phone numbers of various staff members, in addition to the locations of hazardous materials throughout campus.
After Virginia Tech, EH&S decided to make the procedures available to the public — without the information regarding cell phones or hazardous materials.
Carnegie Mellon's urban campus is an asset in the event of an emergency, Miller said. The university is within close reach of city, county, and state police.
"I think it makes us safer," she said.
Moreover, RAs are trained to recognize suspicious students, which could help prevent a future incident, Kroll said. Concern from other students is often cause for immediate action.
"Undoubtedly, we take that very seriously," he said.
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.thetartan.org/2007/4/23/news/va_tech>The Tartan - April 23, 2007</a>
Sarah Mogin
The Tartan
2007-07-31
Sara Hood
Shawn Wertz <swertz@andrew.cmu.edu>
eng