Unifying a Single Point of Activation to Notify Everyone at any Location
Overview
Location: Wenham, Massachusetts
Campus Type: Suburban
Enrollment: Approx. 1,800
Faculty/Staff: 76 Full-time & 191 Part-time
Campus Size: 485 acres
Number of buildings: 37
When an emergency strikes a college or university, school safety personnel must react quickly to provide potentially life-saving information to thousands of students, faculty, and staff across campus. Many higher education campuses use several mass communication systems to send alerts via email, text messages, phone, pop-up desktop notifications, digital signage overrides, and more.
So can deploying multiple emergency alert systems be a hindrance when an emergency occurs? Gordon College thought so and deployed the Alertus System to bring theirs together to create one unified system.
Challenge
Deploying multiple alert systems can be a hindrance to your emergency response. “During a crisis, there isn’t time to go down a checklist of all the systems you need to activate,” said Chris Jones, Vice President for Administration and Emergency Management Coordinator for Gordon College. “The list for activating our various emergency notification systems was daunting, even when the pressure of an emergency was not on.”
Gordon College’s list included systems for text, email, and phone alerting; website banner messages; and digital signage. In addition to requiring multiple logins for activation, the campus police and IT departments operated the systems separately.
Solution
The Need for Unification
Jones recognized the need to unify the school’s emergency notification efforts to create a more cohesive mass notification system. He explains, “I’ve gained more oversight of both the campus police and IT departments. Therefore, I have been able to get these departments working more closely together.” “When it came to unified mass notification, I didn’t know the possibilities until I saw Alertus’ Mass Notification System at a trade show.” The Alertus System makes unification possible by leveraging existing infrastructure and IT assets to integrate disparate legacy systems seamlessly.
Since Gordon College has a small police force, the quick distribution of vital alert messages presented a challenge. With a single point of activation capability, the Alertus System allows officers to utilize student dispatchers for mass notification activation under their direction. “During a crisis, quickly deploying pre-scripted alerts in one button press or one click helps save lives,” added Jones.
Unified and Flexible
While the Alertus System unifies Gordon College’s notification systems, Jones still has the flexibility to activate each system separately. “I am not a fan of putting all your eggs in one basket, so I like having multiple systems,” explained Jones. “I’ve been through situations where the lone notification system has gone down, and we look around saying, ‘Now what?’”
Jones faced this “now what” scenario when a severe windstorm knocked out power on campus. The storm also caused a large tree to fall and take out a telephone pole, resulting in the cell towers losing service. Since the school relied on text and email notifications, it was hard to communicate with the campus during the power outage. “This proved we needed a multi-module mass notification system to help spread the word about an emergency,” said Jones.
Due to the school’s budget constraints, Jones first implemented desktop alerting through the Alertus Safe in Seconds initiative, which offers the Alertus Desktop™ Notification at no cost to schools needing safety and notification system support. With the help of the initiative, Jones installed desktop alerting on all school-owned computers. Jones explains, “One of the best things about Alertus is I can deploy small modules simultaneously. We do not have a large budget at Gordon College, so adding Alertus components as funds become available has been extremely helpful.”
Gordon College has added more than 30 Alertus Alert Beacons®. These wall-mounted devices produce attention-grabbing bright flashes and loud sounds and display a custom message about the nature of the emergency and how to respond. Gordon College also installed Alertus’ Text-to-Speech Self-Amplified Speakers in the science center for clear, intelligible audible alerting on the PA system.
Ready if the Time Comes
Fortunately, the school has not had to activate the Alertus System for a major emergency. Jones and his team perform daily, monthly, and yearly tests of various system parts, and there has not been a single failure. “The Alertus System has been 100 percent stable,” shared Jones.
Beyond Emergency Alerting
Student Response Team
Once Jones saw the power and flexibility of the Alertus System, he realized it could be a mass notification platform for critical emergencies and everyday campus communications — including empowering their student response team.
Gordon College’s student-worker dispatchers, which make up part of the campus police department, didn’t always feel self-assured about their responsibilities. To help boost their confidence, the Gordon team maximized the Alertus System capabilities for protocol reinforcement and reminders.
“We took guesswork and hesitation out of the equation. I love that when a call comes in, our protocol automatically appears on the screen for student dispatchers and walks them through exactly what they need to do,” Jones shared.
Campus Fire & Burglar Alarms
A third-party fire alarm monitoring system monitors Gordon’s campus fire alarms. However, the Gordon team noticed the monitoring company took up to five minutes to inform them of a trigger. For increased peace of mind and a more efficient monitoring process, Jones worked with the fire alarm companies to obtain contact closures for each fire alarm. These contact closures now trigger Gordon College’s Alert Beacons and immediately notify campus dispatchers if a fire alarm goes off.
Gordon College is also following a similar monitoring process for its burglar alarms. “Burglars know it can take multiple minutes to notify police, but now that we have our alarms integrated with Alertus, we can notify officers instantly.”
System Monitoring & Property Conservation
In addition, Gordon College monitors low-level emergencies and property conservation situations through the Alertus System.
Server Room Water & Temperature
Gordon College wired its digital thermometers into Alert Beacons to address environmental monitoring challenges in the school's server rooms. Now, campus police and the IT department receive alerts about overheating issues in the server room via text messages and phone calls.
“The alerts provide a precise location and reiterate the importance of the notification until it’s acknowledged. This process has worked multiple times and notified us of heat or HVAC system problems.”
Boiler Systems
Gordon College recently used the Alertus System integration to monitor the flow switch for various boiler systems throughout the school. This is especially beneficial during the winter when a circulation malfunction is more likely. If the flow switch closes, appropriate maintenance personnel will be immediately alerted.
“You can target the Alertus System strategically, including flow-level emergencies and everyday property conservation. We hold significant value in these non-traditional uses at Gordon College, and I’d encourage everyone to explore the possibilities for their organizations,” Jones advised.
Conclusion
Gordon College will continue to build out the Alertus System with resource constraints in mind as its needs evolve. Eventually, Jones would like to deploy an outdoor siren and PA system for enhanced outdoor alerting.