Warning, Danger, Alarm! (or not)

This morning, at about 11:15, I was shot by a masked man who had broken into the building on Pomona where I was working.

Well, almost.

Well, not really.

I guess I should explain.

This morning, when I got out of class, I went directly to the Computer Science lounge to work on my assignment, which is due at midnight. The CS lounge is a lovely room with large glass walls and lots of computers and white boards. There happened to be about six or seven other people with me in the lounge at the time, and suddenly, their phones all went off. Then they got up and left the room. Dominick, who's in my class, stuck his head around the door frame and asked "Are you coming?"

At this point, I was understandably a bit confused. Several phones just rang all at once, and everyone but me left. And then I was being asked to go somewhere. Where were we going, and why did we need to go there?

The answer came to me a few seconds later as the network manager for the CS department came out of his office and said to me "well, if you keep sitting there, you're going to get shot, and it won't be my problem at that point."

Apparently, Pomona was having a lock down. A lock down drill, to be exact, but they were giving citations to anyone found outside a designated safe room. As I followed a small, ragtag group of professors and students into the "safe room" in that building, I pondered how incredibly fractured the campus notification system is. If I had been alone, and this had been a real lock down, I would be dead by now.

The problem is both easy and understandable. Despite our designation as "The Claremont Colleges" run by the "Claremont University Consortium," we're still one big campus split up into five different colleges (seven, if Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute are included). Each of the colleges runs their own affairs without much interference from any of the other colleges. The only shared resources are the library, campus safety, student health, and the office of the chaplains. Among the services not shared are the registrar's offices, the grounds departments, the catering departments, and the campus notification systems.

At last, the sticking point. There are five (or seven) colleges, each with their own notification system. Being a Scripps student, I am registered on the Scripps emergency notification system. If there is a lock down, or an earth quake drill, or any other situation, I get a text message relaying that information. This is great when I'm on campus, but it has one major flaw: there are five colleges, and I could be on any given campus at any given time.

From this, two scenarios arise. The first is pretty harmless: a Scripps only drill happens, and I'm not on Scripps. No problem, it doesn't effect me. The second scenario, though, is potentially much more dangerous: I'm not on Scripps, and something happens on the campus I'm on. The students around me will get text messages and phone calls, but, just like this morning, I'll be out of the loop. Or another scenario: something happens on Pomona's north campus, but students in the CMC dorms just across the street will have no idea that there is any danger.

There is, clearly, a simple solution for this: make one, big emergency notification list with all students from all five schools on it. Problem solved. Having a lock down drill on Pomona? Send all students the message "lock down drill, Pomona" or something of the sort. Those who are on Pomona at the time will know, those who aren't on Pomona will know, but won't care. Problem solved.

For know though, I have to settle for what I can get. So thank you, Dominick, for making sure I wasn't shot. If you're ever on Scripps, I'll return the favor.