Students, experts: UNC needs to get alerts out faster during on-campus emergencies
Students and parents say the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill needs to do better when responding to an emergency on campus. Of more than 3,200 respondents, nearly 50% said the updates provided by UNC were not at all useful or slightly useful.
UNC released an online survey after deadly on-campus shooting that left a professor dead on August 28. Months later, the results have now been released. The newly-released data includes a list of recommendations – including clearer communication, improved security and additional training.
The university launched the online survey to get feedback from the community about how the school responded to the shooting and how it can better respond to similar events in the future. The survey asked about the usefulness of UNC's emergency communications during the incident.
Students and their family members made up the majority of the people who shared their comments about the university's response to the shooting that locked down this campus for hours.
The university said the responses focused on the following three themes.
Alert Carolina updates
- Send more frequent and detailed updates during the incident.
- Update the “on or near campus” language in the initial Alert Carolina because it was too vague.
- Provide information to parents on how they can get updates during the incident.
- Share more information on the location of the incident and impact as it evolves.
- Make sirens audible in classroom buildings.
- Continue to post the Alert Carolina on the classroom monitors because it was helpful.
Preparedness and training
- Require emergency protocol training and drills, especially for faculty and staff.
- Confirm expectations for faculty about continuing instruction in person or online.
Safety infrastructure
- Ensure all doors can be locked and/or windows can be covered.
- Create building-specific plans and emergency protocols.
- Assign trained department contact person to coordinate during an incident.
Some professors kept teaching during the lockdown
The survey results also recommend making emergency sirens audible in classroom buildings. Right now, those sirens are outdoors. Some students said their professors kept teaching during the lockdown.
The report suggests the university require trainings and drills for faculty and staff and confirm faculty expectations for continuing instruction.
Campus safety consultant: UNC needs to get information out faster
"The University of North Carolina is definitely moving in the right direction," said Daniel Carter, president of Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses.
Carter says the report shows the university needs to do better with getting more information out, faster in an emergency.
"The campus community craves and needs information about their safety. That was the most important thing they said they wanted and the most important thing they need to protect themselves," he said.
UNC declined WRAL News' request for an interview about this survey today.
The university says it will use these findings to help identify ways to improve how it prepares for and responds to future incidents here on campus.
NOTE: Of the 3,362 completed responses received in the feedback portal, the majority of the respondents were students (36%). 27% of respondents were family members of students, 26% were staff, 9% were faculty and 2% identified as other. Half of the respondents were on campus during the incident (50%). Others were off campus and not local (35%) or off campus and local in Chapel Hill or Carrboro (15%).
