MU administrators will be taking steps to improve the university’s response to emergencies on campus, Vice Chancellor for Operations Gary Ward announced in an email Thursday evening. This comes after students expressed frustration during a search for a woman with a gun on campus Wednesday.
Immediate actions include expanding MU Alert, the emergency mass notification system, to allow parents to sign up for text message and email alerts. The university will also promote the MU Alert website, specifically the ”Surviving an Active Shooter” video on how to respond to active threats and the page on whom to contact in an emergency.
The email also listed long-term actions the university will take, which include:
- Meeting with campus groups to gather more feedback to determine what other steps should be taken. These groups include the Campus Safety Committee, Vice Chancellor’s Student Advisory Group, Parents Leadership Council, Faculty Council, Staff Advisory Council, Missouri Students Association and Graduate Professional Council.
- Developing a policy on how to handle class attendance during emergencies.
- Evaluating and improving training for faculty, staff and students, which will include information on planning for an emergency and what campus security measures exist.
- Planning additional training for building coordinators and those answering phones during and after an incident.
- Conducting training and emergency drills for each building on campus.
- Educating those responsible for the training on the best practices.
Ward and MU Operations are responsible for emergency procedures on campus, but there will be multiple groups of people that will assist in taking these actions, MU Spokesman Christian Basi said.
Basi said the university encourages students, faculty and staff to review the training on the MU Alert website. Basi also recommended the free emergency response training offered by MUPD. The class is offered at least once a semester and by request for MU-affiliated groups, according to MUPD’s website.
“In the training we cover how individuals can make decisions that is best for their situation,” Basi said. “One decision that someone should make on one side of campus is not the same as what one should make on the other side of campus.”
Basi said administrators are also considering the positive feedback they received. One such action they received a positive response to was the phone bank used during and after the threat, Basi said.
The phone bank was made up of MU employees from across campus. The bank was set up in less than 23 minutes and answered calls from anyone who had concerns about the threat. Basi said the phone bank has been part of MU’s emergency plan for 15 years, but was not needed until Wednesday, when it was used for the first time.
“In addition to the multiple employees and first responders who were working on this situation and having to make decisions within seconds, we had a couple of other really good things happen yesterday,” Basi said. “(The phone bank) was very successful. We had several people call in and it was able to ease their concerns.”
Members of the MU Faculty Council expressed concern with the lack of direction during the threat at their meeting Thursday. The meeting took place shortly before Ward’s email about future steps was sent.
Faculty Council Chairman William Wiebold noted there was “lots of confusion and uncertainty” regarding what to do. Other members mentioned confusion about if their buildings should be locked and whether teachers should continue teaching during an emergency.
“It is shocking to me that not all faculty have to go through some kind of active threat training module,” said council member John Middleton, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Leah Rosenberg, a religious studies professor standing in for a council member, said she was teaching when the first threat alert was sent. She said she experienced mixed feelings about whether to stay with students after her class had ended.
“We absolutely need something in place,” Rosenberg said. “It’s just an outrage that we don’t know the basic things to do.”
Basi said there is no strict policy on whether teachers should continue to teach during active threats because the situations are dynamic and differ across campus.
“These are not black and white situations, so those were individual decisions that were made on their level of safety in that moment in that location,” Basi said. “That is what we want: Make a decision that will keep you as safe as possible. In many locations, we had professors who said, ‘We are in a safe location, so we will keep teaching.’”
In addition to Twitter, email, text message and website alerts, those on campus were also notified through a desktop alert and beacon alarms in every building, Basi said. He said those who didn’t receive alerts should contact the Department of Information Technology to investigate the problem.
Anyone who wants to sign up for text message alerts can text “Follow MUalert” to 40404, which now allows those without Internet access to read the updates, according to the email.