5. Have others review your canned messages. If you do use canned messages, have a focused group review them. You’ll be surprised what you’ll discover and will undoubtedly make changes.
6. Know and list what will trigger a notice. If at all possible, have “triggers” for emergency notification for likely threats that would result in sending an alert.
7. Educate stakeholders on what sirens mean. Make sure your campus understands that a siren warning system is designed to warn people outdoors. Audio siren warning systems are usually better than a series of different sirens or sounds.
8. Notify administrators. As an alert message is being constructed and executed, someone else should be contacting senior administrators to give them advanced warning. Equally importantly, your communications (especially the person with the capability and authority to place internet content) must be ready for follow up information.
9. Practice, practice, practice. Practice typing out text alerts (remember, most systems have a maximum amount of characters); practice sending out alerts to control groups; and including emergency notification in training exercises. Table-top exercises, alternated with simulated emergencies, prepare a campus for the necessary response, inspire confidence in the participants, and send a signal to the community that emergency preparedness is a priority for its leadership.
10. Determine how to notify parents. In the era of “helicopter parents” and “millennial students,” assess the culture of your campus to determine how much related information is sent to parents of your student body. Once an emergency is addressed, the inevitable stories, rumors and criticism can be confronted if messages, letters and media announcements report the latest facts about a campus situation.
11. Involve IT in the entire process. Make sure your information technology office is a key stakeholder in the selection, maintenance and overall process. They will be invaluable when it comes to populating data, deleting graduates and ex-employees.
12. Think of the unthinkable. Does your policy have a means for retracting messages? What if an alert is sent out accidently? What if your server is down? How will your system be used for summer campers? Will your sirens sound for the same situations as the local/county sirens?
Remember: Mass Notification Only Mitigates a Crisis
With all of the current media attention focused on the mechanisms of community-wide alerts, it is essential for college and university administrators to sharpen the focus of what the real intent is behind sending a campus wide alert: To notify the community of an ongoing threat and to advise them of appropriate actions to take to provide for the safest possible outcomes. With these as the central goals of an emergency notification system, leaders in campus crisis planning can help direct their communities in decision making about the appropriateness of different modes of communication and how to implement them.
Andy Altizer is the director of emergency preparedness at Georgia Institute of Technology. Roby Hill is director of communications at the South Carolina College of Pharmacy. Dr. Britt Katz is the vice president of student life and dean of students at Millsaps College. Dr. Dawn Watkins serves as the vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Washington and Lee University. Dr. Gene Zdziarski is vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Roanoke College.
