Universities Using CityWatch to Alert Students of Emergency

La Crosse Tribune - McClatchy - Tribune

Tuesday, July 7th 2009
When a student was robbed at gunpoint near Viterbo University last November, inaccurate messages ricocheted around campus. Students called their parents, and parents called the university about the attack, said Diane Brimmer, Viterbo's vice president for student development.

"It was like a game of telephone," she said. While such incidents are rare for local college campuses, it would have been helpful to get the message out correctly with something the university has invested in -- an electronic notification system, CityWatch.

Viterbo recently joined the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the city's police department in using the program, which can immediately send out emergency messages to people via phone, text messaging and e-mail, said Pat Kerrigan, vice president for communications and marketing at Viterbo.

In the wake of shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, emergency planning and notification has boomed at colleges across the country. Viterbo, Western Technical College and all schools in the UW System have emergency response plans and notification systems.

UW-L and Viterbo have CityWatch and other methods such as loudspeaker systems in buildings to notify people in emergencies. Western has its own notification system, similar to CityWatch, said Shelley McNeely, Western's student development manger.

Viterbo and UW-L haven't yet had to use CityWatch. But La Crosse police have used it several times since 1999, said Lt. Bob Berndt.

Police sent out a message in 2001 to the area around the La Crosse River marsh after a La Crosse man stabbed a female college student running on the marsh trails, he said. The message -- sent to those who have landline phones -- notified people of the danger and told them to lock their doors. A later message told them the individual had been arrested, said Berndt. CityWatch didn't help catch the man but was a great public safety tool, he said.

When UW-L started CityWatch two years ago, it included cell phones -- students' primary mode of communication, said Scott Rohde, chief of UW-L's university police. "It's something you hope you never use," he said. "It's like insurance -- you want to know you have a backup plan if you need it."