By Megan LaBar
In April, a student shot and killed 33 people at Virginia Tech. Last week, another student shot and injured four people at Success Tech Academy in Cleveland. Over the past six months, RVCC has been working on emergency plans, but many of the plans have yet to become a reality.
In the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting, John Trojan, vice president of Finance and Facilities, promised to deliver an action plan that would guide the community in the event of a similar emergency here. It would include a campus-wide PA system with at least one loud speaker in each hallway, and faculty and staff floor captains to help people respond to the emergency.
West, the new building completed during the summer, does have a PA system, but no other campus buildings have systems and there are no floor captains anywhere yet.
Nevertheless, Trojan says, “We have seen many improvements since Virginia Tech,” for example, new software on campus computers to alert those using them if an emergency occurs.
But Trojan plans to replace the system of voice, text and e-mail alerts that he found lacking last semester because it was limited to 500 text messages at a time. He says he’ll soon meet with representatives from three phone companies to find a better system. “The hardest thing for students is to sit and be patient in an emergency situation,” which should be the first thing students do until the problem is under control, Trojan said.
Trojan also intends to improve communication with the campus Police Academy staff and students so they could help in an emergency, because “at anytime there can be seven to 12 armed police on campus” he says. “Call them first in an emergency situation, (and) the response would be immediate.”
In addition to the Police Academy, RVCC can count on emergency support from Somerset County Sheriff’s Officers and Branchburg Police, Trojan said. To improve coordination among the three, RVCC will hold a drill the day before Thanksgiving. The exercise will simulate a hostage situation that includes a shooter, he said, because the most difficult scenario is one in which there is a “threatening person” on campus.
The drill, he said, “will help people who respond to an emergency at RVCC become familiar with our campus.”
Meanwhile, a Safety Committee has developed a program to train faculty and staff volunteers to be floor captains. The captains “will monitor the hallways and be able to respond to the emergency,” Trojan said; “they will be the prime movers in a local area.” But there are no volunteer floor captains yet and Trojan said that getting people to volunteer for the job may be difficult.
The New Jersey Council of Community Colleges requires all community colleges to have an Emergency Preparedness Plan. Trojan says that RVCC’s plan is solid.
The committee recently published an abbreviated Emergency Management Plan. They cut it from 30 pages to four pages front and back. In addition, a wallet-size card provides a few safety tips to follow in an emergency, for example, “stay calm.”
West is the most secure building on campus, Trojan said. Cameras in the classrooms turn on when someone walks in or turns on a light, and security personnel monitoring the rooms can lock the doors electronically. Trojan was unable to say when the rest of campus will have cameras and electronic doors.
One problem with expanding security measures throughout the campus is that the National Fire Code prohibits classrooms that can be locked from inside. Trojan thinks the state legislature will use security concerns to resolve the conflict. “Considering what happened at Virginia Tech,” he said, “this could change.”
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