Several campuses made it into the news in the last few days with their ongoing efforts to improve campus safety in the wake of the killings in April on the campus of Virginia Tech.

Ball State University has announced plans to test their new emergency text-messaging service. About 3,700 students, faculty, and staff have signed up to participate in the test, according to the Star Press. Nearby Purdue University did a similar test last month and they estimate that their e-mails reached close to 60,000 people within six minutes whereas the text-messaging service reached about 5,000 people within seven minutes.




In Charlottesville, Va., about 150 miles from the site of the April massacre on Virginia Tech's campus, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors is working to implement recommendations from a state panel convened by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. Among the recommendations that UVA has already begun to put in place:

• Keycard locks on classroom doors
• Retrofitting building entrance and hallway doors
  so that they cannot be chained shut
• an emergency text-messaging system
• a campus-wide public address system

St. Bonaventure University in New York also ran a successful campus email alert test last week. The small Catholic school has about 2,000 undergraduates enrolled.