One of the most crucial steps in making sure students and staff stay safe during an emergency is communication.

Since the April massacre at Virginia Tech, school officials have been criticized for not sending out alerts quickly enough.

Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman, shot his first two victims just after 7 a.m. More than two hours later, he killed 30 people in a classroom all the way across campus. It wasn’t until 9:26 a.m. that the school sent out its first e-mail to students and faculty.

If a similar situation were to happen at Sacramento State, would the school’s current emergency communication system be sufficient?

“If an emergency were to happen on campus,we would use broadcast e-mail systems by sending to students’ preferred e-mail accounts,” said Larry Gilbert, vice president and chief information officer of Information Re-sources and Technology. “We would also use automated phone calling systems to send voice-mail messages to employee phones on campus.”

Although this system would offer a quick response to the campus community, some believe a new system is needed.

“I’m very concerned,” said criminal justiceprofessor Tim Capron. “I think Sac State is way behind technologically. A Virginia Tech-type situation could easily happen here.”

To improve communication and overall safety, Sac State will soon switch to a new emergency response system from software company Mutare. This new system is the same one used by the U.S. Senate.

“Sac State worked hard to identify the best procedures for communicating with students and employees in an emergency,” Gilbert said. “We looked at the best practices across the country, including at VirginiaTech, and quickly moved to acquire a proven emergency messaging system.”

The first phase of implementing this new system is to establish messaging to reach first responders, such as campus police. In an emergency, immediate phone calls and text messages would be sent out to phones for both campus and private emergency responders.

Officials hope to have the first phase of this system completed within the next couple months, Gilbert said.

The second phase would use the same messaging system to simultaneously make phone calls to each individual classroom on campus, notifying professors of what action to take depending on what the emergency is.

Officials hope to have the second phase completed by the end of this semester, Gilbert said.

Sac State is also working on a network messaging system that would post emergencypop-up messages on all campus computers.

Campus officials are working with the campus Budget Advisory Committee to secure funding for electronic signs that emergency alerts could immediately be posted on. These signs would be placed in heavily-trafficked areas like the University Union.

The Mutare messaging system can also be used for comprehensive e-mailing to targeted groups, such as students.

“However, because most students now use private e-mail addresses, e-mailing to students is too unreliable in an emergency,”Gilbert said.

For this reason, Sac State is moving toward requiring students to use their school e-mail addresses for all official campus communications.

New students will likely be required to do this starting with the Spring 2008 semester,Gilbert said.

Another option of this new system is for students to voluntarily sign up for text messaging services in times of emergency.

More than 70 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds own a cell phone, and 92 percent of them text message, according to a 2006 Pew survey.

On Sept. 26, after a masked freshman came to campus at St. John’s University with a loaded rifle, the school alerted studentsthrough text messages within 18 minutes.

Despite the proven effectiveness of emergency text messaging at St. John’s, a low percentage of students have signed up for this program at other campuses that already have this service.

The main goal of these technological upgradesis to make students and staff feel safer at school.

“I’m glad the university is taking these steps to ensure our safety,” said undeclaredfreshman Casey White. “Hopefully we’ll never have an emergency like Virginia Tech.”

Michael Calvillo can be reached at [email protected].