University of Alaska Anchorage

A campus police department relies on the 3n mass notification system to assemble crisis response teams and keep students safe

The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) is the largest university in the state, serving approximately 15,000 to 20,000 students per semester. Between 7,000 and 10,000 students attend UAA each semester at the main campus in Anchorage, which employs nearly 3,000 people. In addition to its primary campus, UAA operates four satellite campuses across Alaska. The UAA Police Department, headed by Chief Dale Pittman, is responsible for providing a safe campus environment for faculty, students, and staff and regularly responds to a wide variety of emergencies ranging from intoxicated students to traffic issues to gas leaks and hazardous spills.

Challenges

UAA continually evaluates its crisis communication plan to safeguard its students, faculty, and staff. The university’s Police Department faced several challenges in connecting with key staff members and notifying faculty and students in different buildings during campus emergencies:

• UAA’s Police Department grappled with notifying people of danger in a specific area. UAA’s campus police recognized the need to be able to lock down certain areas of campus quickly following an incident in which a student attempted to assault other students and pulled numerous fire alarms. As existing emergency calling processes were manual, the team didn't have an efficient method of warning students and notifying university faculty and staff of the danger.
• UAA’s IT infrastructure could not support emergency call volumes. The university’s communication infrastructure is set up to handle daily calling, but isn’t sufficient to operate under the strain of calling hundreds or thousands of people simultaneously in an emergency.
• Assembling the campus response team took too long. UAA’s campus response team consists of the university’s safety officer, media relations director, dean of students, facilities manager, and campus police chief. Contacting the crisis team during emergencies required Chief Pittman to call each member of the team one by one until he was able to get through, hampering his ability to coordinate schedules and set up conference calls quickly.

Solution

UAA’s Police Department implemented 3n’s InstaCom™ Campus Alert system to meet its crisis response and notification objectives. InstaCom enables campus law enforcement to communicate rapidly with key personnel regarding emergencies and routine campus issues. Since implementing the 3n mass notification system, UAA has received positive feedback from those affected by the system. Message recipients particularly appreciate the system's voice-recording capability. Receiving messages from a recognizable voice–Chief Pittman’s—lends a personal touch.

Prior to selecting 3n, UAA researched numerous communication solutions. Other systems, however, didn't provide the ease-of-use and robust capabilities of the 3n system. In the coming months, UAA will be rolling out the 3n mass notification system to other parts of the university and exploring ways to expand usage of the system.

"The 3n mass notification system has saved us a tremendous amount of time in emergency situations ranging from gas leaks to shootings. As the University of Alaska Anchorage continues to build on its crisis response capabilities, we will leverage the 3n system as a fundamental component of our communication strategy."
– Chief Dale Pittman, University of Alaska Anchorage Police Department

Results

• Emergency notification takes less time and is more effective. The 3n mass notification system enables the UAA Police Department to instantly contact key personnel in emergencies. Since implementation, the 3n system has been used in a variety of situations, such as notifying administration of a building gas leak and sending urgent notices about a fatal shootout-in-progress. Using the 3n system, the Police Department was able to provide regular updates and instructions regarding the emergencies.
• Message delivery is guaranteed without overwhelming UAA’s IT infrastructure. Because UAA leverages 3n’s robust system infrastructure for sending out voice and text communications, the university’s internal IT systems are not impacted, which ensures that the university can communicate with its key audiences during any emergency—regardless of the number of people to be contacted.
• Campus response team members spend more time managing the crisis and less time coordinating communications. The UAA Police Department uses the 3n mass notification system to set up instant conference calls with members of the campus response team. Rather than calling each team member one by one, Chief Pittman can assemble the entire team in minutes using the 3n system, saving a great deal of time.