WSA discusses emergency announcement system

By Megan Higdon
Western Herald

Whenever the Western Michigan University administration has to notify students of an important message, they have a few options. There is the Western Michigan University homepage (wmich.edu), the on-campus television channel EduCABLE, and the WMU hotline 269-387-1001.

Still, there are students who do not receive announcements. What if there was a more urgent emergency that affected the safety of students and they needed to be notified immediately?

Western Student Association welcomed Cam Vossen, WMU emergency management administrator and Pete Strazdas, associate vice president of Facilities Management, to speak about the new plans in campus safety.

If the university needs to make an emergency or campus wide announcement, all forms of communication would be utilized, and there is a building emergency staff within every residence hall. But as Strazdas asked during his presentation, “is there a better, quicker way to get information out to the population on campus?”

And his answer was given, instantaneous external and internal speakers on every building on WMU’s campus. These speakers will generate automated messages to students both in and outside of every building.

As of now, there are 3,270 interior speakers located within forty-two buildings on campus, which are on fire alarms, and there are also thirty-two speakers located on the exteriors of buildings.

UEP plans on adding many more speakers to the campus, and will conduct its first test during spring break.

“There is no campus in the United States that I am aware of with this mass notification,” Strazdas said.

Not only are these speakers set up on main campus, but there are interior speakers on East Campus as well as the Parkview campus. The College of Aviation campus in Battle Creek has its own emergency mass communication, but it is not deployed centrally from DPS.

There are fourteen automated messages that can be transmitted through these speakers, and each varies on level of severity. Since many of the speakers are connected through copper wires, they cannot have a “live” voice access them, Stazdas said.

“It works, it’s effective, and it’s the most cost effective thing we can do.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” said Julia Selwa, who will soon to be applying as a senator for Henry Hall.

There is flexibility in which buildings receive messages and whether or not the indoor or outdoor speakers are used.

“It’s all about safety and it’s all about doing our job to make sure you’re safe on campus,” Strazdas said.

“I think the speakers are good for the university,” Disney College Program senator Daniel Cross said, “it will bring more safety to the campus.”

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Posted by heraldstaff on Jan 27 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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