In light of recent events on school campuses across the country, administration at Sampson Community College is making an effort to beef up security and provide a safer learning environment for students.
“We have already had a number of safety measures in place,” SCC president Dr. Bill Starling said to the trustees during Tuesday night’s meeting. “We wanted to do something that would only increase those measures.”
Members of the staff are currently undergoing training for ALICE, a nationally certified program that increases the overall safety of a school. Additionally, the school will begin using VikingWire, a means of communication between the staff and students in times of emergency and informative situations.
ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) provides preparation and a plan for individuals and organizations on how to more actively handle the threat of an aggressive intruder or active shooter event.
All faculty and staff will be trained through an active-shooter simulation event that will incorporate local law enforcement and emergency responders.
“The tragedy in Florida has spurred an interest in many people receiving this training,” Starling shared. “We are lucky that our staff was already planning to attend this training before the Florida shooting occurred.”
Starling said the college is also working to consolidate the use of buildings for class in the evenings.
“Every time there is a tragedy, people can look around and see how open this campus is,” Starling said. “We want to bring the envelope a lot tighter by reducing the number of buildings being used for instruction in the evenings.”
Through RAVE Mobile Security, the college has implemented VikingWire, a method of communication between the staff and students to send notification in the event of an emergency or tragedy.
“This is a notification system that will increase the overall safety for our students, faculty and staff,” David Lockwood, computer systems technician, said. “VikingWire will send out a message in the case of security issues.”
Systems like VikingWire are being utilized on campuses across the state, including East Carolina University, N.C. State University and other community colleges.
The goal is to implement the program by the end of March. The college will also have the capability to send out non-emergency information, weather-related information and reminders.
“In the event there is an emergency situation, we can send an alert to notify students and warn them about coming on campus,” Lockwood said. “We can also send out announcements that are not emergency related.”