Dear Campus Community,
I am writing to follow up on President Iuliano’s email from last week with clarifications about emergency procedures and also some process changes we are making within Campus Safety.
Campus Safety Office Hours
We are in the process of hiring additional individuals to assist us with extending office hours to 8 p.m. each night, while also allowing us to have office hours on Saturday and Sunday from noon - 8p.m. As soon as we have staff hired and trained, we will be implementing these hours.
When to call Campus Safety vs. 911
Campus Safety is dedicated to providing a safe campus environment through patrol, life safety, fire safety, and emergency management. That said, in an emergency where there is a risk to life, it is imperative that you call 911. Calling 911 allows for the necessary resources to be sent to campus. The Adams County 911 Center will alert Campus Safety of incidents occurring on campus. Additionally, if you have concerns about any vehicle being driven on public streets, 911 is also the appropriate number to call for assistance. Campus Safety does not have jurisdiction on public roads and calling Campus Safety will slow down the response time of the police. Examples of public streets are Carlisle Street, Washington Street, Lincoln Avenue, and Constitution Avenue.
Communicating with Campus Safety
Starting today, we have activated a texting platform that allows you to request certain services. These include unlocks, jump starts, and safety escorts. As we evaluate this service, we may add additional services to the list. To access the service, send a text message saying “Hello” to 717-328-8314. The texting service will ask you a series of questions and then dispatch an officer.
We have also been working on the auto-attendant that answers our phones during non-office hours. We understand that it was too long and have shortened it to provide the basic information needed to contact the right person. The options are:
- Press 1 or stay on the line if someone is in distress
- Press 2 for a room unlock
- Press 3 for a non-emergency
Lastly, we are working to update the list of buildings on campus—and spaces within those buildings—to reflect both the official name of buildings and short-hand the community uses to identify different buildings and spaces. This is a work-in-progress but will help us to better respond to calls for assistance. If you run into an issue where a location or building name is not known by our dispatchers, please send me an e-mail with that information so that we can make the appropriate updates in our system.
Campus Safety continues to strive to provide the best service possible for our campus community, and we will continue to make improvements to our processes and capabilities to ensure we are meeting campus expectations and keeping our College community safe.
Best,
Alex