news-record.com

GREENSBORO — With the tragedy of Virginia Tech still a fresh memory, UNCG will enter its second of a three-year campus safety upgrade worth nearly $1 million.

“Every university in the country felt it necessary to evaluate how they communicate during an emergency,” said Bruce Griffin, assistant vice chancellor for environmental safety.

To improve emergency communications with employees and students, the school is using e-mail alerts, cell phone text messaging and pop-up ads, among others. The pop-up ad software is available for download and is installed on all UNCG computers and laptops bought through the school.

Griffin said the school’s internal computer system, UNCGenie, which all employees and students interact with, requests a cell phone number, making it more difficult for people not to take part in the text messaging service.

The school also modified 16 of the 150 emergency phone stations on campus to work as a public alert system, ringing a siren and allowing police to use them as a public address system.

UNCG police performed a massive, daylong training for a shooting on campus in January.

Assistant Police Chief Jamie Herring said he has always been confident in his officers’ abilities to respond to an emergency on campus, but the new lines of communication will allow them to quickly make the public aware of the situation.

“Parents expect us to be able to communicate with their student when it comes to the safety of their child,” he said.

Herring said the system also improved communications between the school and Guilford County emergency management.

The school is also installing devices in every classroom that will allow anyone in the class to communicate with police and university officials. The devices will be in about 40 percent of classrooms by midsemester. Griffin said that effort should be complete within the next year or so.

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 373-7351 or brian.ewing@news-record.com.