YSU supplements campus security with new emergency-alert system

The Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 prompted officials to improve procedures.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University has launched a new campuswide text-messaging and e-mail system to help improve communications with the campus community during an emergency.

YSU Alert is the latest in a series of communications tools implemented by the university to provide better and quicker information to students and employees in the event of a campus emergency or crisis.

Students, parents, faculty and staff are encouraged to register for the system at alert.ysu.edu. Registration is required to receive emergency messages.

The system is able to send instant messages to up to 30,000 individuals per minute on their mobile devices.

“This new alert system is one more step to help provide a safe learning environment for all students and staff at YSU,” said Cynthia Anderson, vice president for student affairs. “This system will enable us to communicate to students, parents and employees in a timely manner during emergency situations.”

The university has been gradually upgrading its emergency-messaging system over the past couple of years in light of crises that have occurred on other college campuses across the country. The murders of 32 people and the wounding of numerous others by a single student gunman at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., in 2007 seemed to hit the YSU campus hard, with the campus community reaching out to the Virginia Tech community to offer prayers and support.

YSU began looking into instituting a text-messaging system that year that could be used to alert the campus community in the event of an emergency, with the goal being to have a system that can send text messages to computers and cell phones of all employees and students on and off campus.

Consideration of a warning system was an offshoot of the Ohio Board of Regent’s Task Force on Campus Security, created in April 2007 after the Virginia Tech killings.

Part of YSU’s response includes providing training for staff members to help them recognize the signs of mental illness and to get help for those who need it.

YSU Alert is one of several tools the university has to communicate with students and employees in an emergency. The others are:

UCampuswide mass-communications and alarm system allows YSU to broadcast emergency announcements targeted to specific buildings.

UYSU homepage at www.ysu.edu will provide up-to-date information in the case of emergency.

UEmergency Information Line at (330) 941-2222 will include updated information related to campus emergencies.

UMyYSU portal. The university posts campus announcements and e-mails providing updates in the event of an emergency.

UNews media: The university has a news-media call list that would be activated in an emergency.