The impacts and research of a class project on emergency preparedness may quell rising safety concerns on the Sacramento State campus.

Gerontology majors Marian Smith, Nancy Freeman, and Nancy Murrish said collective interest spurred their research on emergency preparation procedures well before recent local school shooting threats or the Virginia Tech University massacre two weeks ago.

There are “all kinds of things you can do to self-help, but” most people don’t know what they are, Smith said.

Seeing how fear permeated educational institutions nationwide, they broadened their scope from merely gathering information for their personal knowledge to finding ways to make available information more accessible to Sac State students, who are often ignorant of emergency procedures.

“We wanted to bring up student awareness level so students can assume responsibility for themselves,” Smith said.

Murrish added, “In any emergency, you need to take care of yourself first before you can expect any outside help.” She said no one should assume that rescue or outside help would arrive and act immediately.

Lt. Dan Davis of the University Police Department said everyone has an individual emergency plan because even a speedy response time of “three to five minutes” – not including time to assess and formulate a logistical tactic to deploy – would still leave someone to fend for him or herself for at least a while. “I wish we could be there in five seconds, but the practicality of it is, we can’t,” Davis said.

Murrish said she and her classmates were pleased to find that the University Police had several emergency plans to address man-made and natural disasters and that emergency preparedness information was readily available to the public through the University Police website and office.

Davis said every building “where instruction is going on” has a designated building coordinator who is knowledgeable about emergency procedures and responsible for coordinating people within the structure in the event of an emergency.

However, the gerontology students are also encouraging police to do more outreach to students to give them that information. Davis said that though a town hall meeting was held recently at the residence halls to educate students on how to act in an emergency situation, police are still learning from the information being gathered from Virginia Tech.

“I think once we get a lot of the ‘lessons learned’ things, we’re going to look at offering workshops on what to do,” Davis said.

Smith, Freeman and Murrish are also urging student-run media to include safety tips as part of their project and effort to inform students despite their busy schedules and the apathy that may result once the shock of Virginia Tech subsides.

“People aren’t always going to be paying attention, but at least it’s information that might filter in,” Smith said.

Marilen Bugarin can be reached at [email protected]