The Need for Instant Emergency Notification

Overview

Location: Ashland, VA
Campus Type: Suburban 
Enrollment: 1,500+ 
Faculty/Staff: 300 
Campus Size: 125 acres

Steeped in history that pre-dates the Civil War, Randolph-Macon College is a small, private school in Ashland, VA, that offers its students personal freedom and individual academic attention. “We’re big enough where residential students have autonomy, but small enough where they don’t get lost in the numbers,” said Maurice Kiely, Assistant Director of Campus Security for Randolph-Macon College.

Challenge

Kiely and the campus safety team have worked to keep the close-knit campus safe.  Still, two primary factors made them recognize the need for a notification system to alert students of any hazard or emergency. The first factor was the pair of well-documented shooting incidents — the Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007 and the Washington D.C. sniper attacks in 2002 — as both tragedies hit close to home. The second factor was the school’s location, which is only half a mile from the busy I-95 corridor in northern Virginia, potentially making it a soft target. Additionally, a train station less than 50 yards from campus serves Amtrak and CSX trains. While there have been no derailments, Kiely knows it’s a potential threat. “We see what’s happened with derailments in other parts of the country,” he said. 

“These factors made us realize the need for instant emergency notification, so we immediately moved to get an emergency mass notification system in place,” he said. The school initially created “RMC Alerts.” Administered by e2campus, it consists of SMS text and email alerts. However, since text and email require students to voluntarily opt-in, the school needed another notification layer.

Solution

Kiely discovered and added the Alertus Desktop™ Notification by taking advantage of the Alertus Desktop Donation Initiative. The philanthropic program provides the Alertus Desktop Notification at no cost to schools and select organizations with limited funds dedicated to emergency mass notifications. The Alertus Desktop sends pop-up alerts on all selected PCs or Macs, even if the machines are in sleep mode.

“We were able to flawlessly integrate the Alertus Desktop Notification with e2campus, which gave us a trifecta of emergency notification coverage,” said Kiely. “We can now broadcast the same message via text and email on all college-owned computers.” The school has approximately 1,200 computers and laptops on the system. “While the students, faculty, and staff are on their machines in offices, classrooms, or labs, there are multiple overlays when we send an alert,” added Kiely. “This means that while their cell phone may go off with the SMS text, they’re also looking at the alert on their computer monitor.” 

Real-time Activation 

We put the system to good use during a multi-million, multi-year expansion project that added a new student center, science center, two residence halls, and football and baseball fields. However, during the large project, there was an incident where the construction crew ruptured a natural gas line creating the need to activate the system to evacuate the buildings. “We don’t have a siren or a PA system, but by using the Alertus Desktop in conjunction with e2campus, you could see hundreds and hundreds of people exiting buildings and following the directions we gave via the alert messages,” explained Kiely.

Continuous Testing and Education 

Students and their parents are educated about “RMC Alerts” during orientation, where they are encouraged to sign up for the service. The school tests the notification system twice during each of the three semesters to ensure it’s ready when needed.