Crisis Response on Feb. 27
UALR utilized an assortment of multi-media tools in its communications arsenal last week to quickly notify students, faculty, staff, and the public of the shooting incident near the tennis courts last Wednesday afternoon (Feb. 27).
Before the end of that day, the University made 8,569 telephone warnings, issued e-mail alerts to 36,461 addresses, posted updates on the UALR home page, constructed and constantly updated a crisis information webpage, and through University spokespeople, explained the evolving situation to state and local media including the Associated Press, MSNBC, all local television stations, and several news radio stations.
The crisis occurred just one week after a campus test of UALR’s new AlertXpress, a solution that allows government agencies to create and deliver large-scale notifications to people and businesses by telephone, fax, or e-mail. UALR aquired the program through JusticeXchange and a grant from the Arkansas Crime Information Council.
The computer-generated program allows Campus Police to write a short description of safety situation that is converted into an audio message. With the press of a button, the computer sends the message to all telephone numbers in the system. At the same time, Campus Police sent the message to all students, faculty, and staff with UALR e-mail accounts.
Efforts are under way to expand the alert system by offering students and faculty an opportunity to list up to six telephone numbers that can be called with future alert messages. Jeannie Winston, director of Computing Services, said the expanded registration should be ready in a week with a text message component ready within another week.
UALR’s crisis began at approximately 2:15 p.m. on Feb. 27. James Earl Matthews, 33, was shot near the UALR tennis courts on University Drive. Campus police responded within three minutes of the 911 call, and the student was transported to a local hospital for treatment. Police have arrested the alleged driver of the vehicle seen leaving the scene of the shooting and are still searching for the other African American male identified as a suspect.
Within 14 minutes of the 911 call to police, UALR issued a crisis alert through 2,856 computer-generated telephone calls and 13,010 e-mail alerts and Office of Communication staff members were at the scene. Shortly thereafter, the UALR Office of Communications posted updates on the situation and began constructing a crisis webpage.
Throughout the day, Campus Police issued updates on the situation. All told, Campus Police issued a total of telephone 8,569 messages in three separate alert messages issued to 2,856 telephones. Computing Services sent 36,461 e-mail alerts to students – three separate alerts sent to 12,153 accounts. Another 8,569 e-mails went to faculty and staff in three alerts.
While Campus Police collected evidence and Media Relations personnel answered media calls, the University’s web team constructed a crisis web page that included the text of the alert messages, a time line of the crisis, links to the campus safety guide, and the University’s annual federally required safety statistics showing that UALR is one of the safest campuses in the South.