How UT Austin Keeps Parents Informed About Incidents
Parent association and daily police department E-mail kept parents of UT Austin students up-to-date about the Sept. 28 active shooter incident.
When an active shooter incident occurs on campus, inevitably and understandably, the parents of students will want to know that their children are safe. Many may want to sign up to receive campus emergency text alerts, however, Cronk, Dalhstrom and Harkins do not recommend this practice.
“If you let the parents sign up, you slow down the notification process, so you can’t get the message out to the students quickly,” says Dahlstrom.
Instead, parents of UT Austin students are encouraged to sign up for UTPD’s daily E-mail message, called “Campus Watch.”
“We also have a very active parents association,” says Harkins. “During the Sept. 28 event, the parents association was fielding a lot of calls from parents and doing a lot of good work for us. Bring them inside your tent and use them.”
Related articles:
- UT Austin: Proof Positive That Training, Relationships and Technology Pay Off
- UT Austin Shooting Incident Timeline
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About the Author
Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief
Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.
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