Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tech weighs slew of recommendations
Improving security and communications after the April 16 shootings could cost tens of millions of dollars.
Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times
James Hyatt, chairman of the Security Infrastructure Group, discusses the removal of devices from the university doors in order to prevent chains from being attached.
Related
Virginia Tech report
Individual group reports
- Download a PDF of the full Security Infrastructure Group report
- Download a PDf of the full Information and Communications Infrastructure Group report
- Download a PDF of the full Interface Group report
Complete coverage
What happens next?
- The state panel will hold a closed-door meeting Friday in Charlottesville. The eight-member panel plans to release its report Thursday.
- Victims’ families will receive advance copies of the report and a briefing on its contents. Some families already have been briefed via conference call on the structure and scope of the report.
Reports at a glance
A few of the recommendations made in Tech’s internal review, released Wednesday:- Video surveillance cameras on campus
- Electronic text displays and audible alarms in classrooms and message boards at entrances to key buildings and at outdoor campus entrances
- Locator system that students and employees could use to let people know their location and status during crises
- Emergency response coordinators assigned to each campus building
- A public safety building to consolidate police and rescue services (Tech officials will request $1.6 million to begin design of the building at a board of visitors meeting Monday.)
- A fully integrated Internet Protocol-based communications system
- Efforts to leverage the work of Tech’s Wireless@Virginia Tech research group and the university’s information technology staff to support the efforts of community responder agencies “to develop and implement a fully interoperable, advanced mobile communications system in the region”
- Additional training for staff on violence prevention and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
- A committee for campus and workplace violence prevention to coordinate efforts to promote a civil and nonviolent community
- Clarified policies for communicating with external agencies about distressed students
BLACKSBURG -- Virginia Tech's internal assessment of the April 16 shootings released Wednesday recommends bulking up security and communication and new ways to deal with troubled students. The reports, however, are not critical of the university's response to the shootings and handling of Seung-Hui Cho in the months before he killed 32 people and himself.
Tech President Charles Steger called for the internal review May 9, less than a month after he requested that a state panel look into the shootings.
"The external review commissioned by Governor [Tim] Kaine is essentially investigatory in nature," he said, "while ours is a forward-looking review of university policy, resources and infrastructure through the prism of April 16."
At a news conference, Steger said the university has incurred nearly $8 million in costs associated with the shootings and would conduct a cost-benefit analysis of each report's recommendations. The number of the recommendations in each of the three reviews varies -- the communications infrastructure group makes more than 120; the report on improving information offers seven.
Steger said the recommendations' cost, which could be tens of millions of dollars, would not prevent Tech from adopting a policy that it deems truly helpful.
Tech has applied for federal grants through the Department of Justice and Department of Education that would fund some recommendations, such as the creation of case managers in the dean of students office and Cook Counseling Center.
That was one of the recommendations made by the team focused on information sharing among groups such as student counseling, the legal system and academic affairs. It was led by Jerry Niles, former dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. The group also recommended a threat assessment team to deal with students who could pose a threat to themselves and others. Tech already has a "Care Team," a group of officials that meets regularly to talk about troubled students.
While it suggests ways to improve, the report does not find fault with the current system of handling troubled students.
"By its nature the overall system at Virginia Tech is logically connected and responsive," it reads. "The system for dealing with at-risk student [sic] is considered to be comprehensive, accessible and responsive."
The university and the local community services board faced criticism after the shootings because of what appeared to be a lack of follow-up and sharing of information about Cho. Cho had had run-ins with local law enforcement and was committed to Carilion Saint Albans Behavioral Health outside Radford in 2005. He also exhibited behavior that alarmed multiple English professors and his roommates.
Led by Vice President for Information Technology Earving Blythe, the information and communications infrastructure group was charged with analyzing the systems used during and after the shooting.
The group's 121-page report gives a detailed account of resources used by emergency responders, members of the media and the university community, including campus and regional data communications systems, Web communications facilities, phone service and data preservation and retrieval.
In summarizing its findings, the committee wrote that telecommunications on campus and in the community were "dramatically stressed during the initial response period but performed adequately."
The report also highlights infrastructure "that experienced degradation during the response."
According to the report, during the initial response period on April 16, calls flooded external cellular networks and the Public Switched Telephone Network, resulting in blocked calls.
The report also found "deficiencies in interoperability and coverage of police, fire and rescue radio communications," a common problem among emergency responders nationwide. In particular, the group noted, emergency responders' radios did not work inside some areas of Norris Hall.
In outlining the reports' suggestions, Blythe noted, "although few if any of these recommendations would have been relevant to early detection or mitigation of the events of April 16, virtually all address issues or circumstances that would have made the hours and days following the event less hectic."
A committee charged with reviewing security at Virginia Tech recommended building a new public safety facility, monitoring some areas with video cameras and installing computerized message boards that would provide alerts during emergencies. But none of the three reports recommends how quickly those technologies should be used to notify the campus in a time of crisis.
"That's really the focus of the [gubernatorial] panel," Steger said.
This week, a victim advocacy group, Security on Campus, asked the U.S. Department of Education to investigate whether Tech violated a federal law requiring schools to give timely warnings about crimes that pose a threat to students.
On April 16, Montgomery County schools were notified about Cho's first attack at West Ambler Johnston dormitory before the Virginia Tech campus was alerted.
Tech posted a message on its Web site at 9:26 a.m., about two hours after the shootings at the dorm. An e-mail message to the Tech community went out at about that time. Cho's attack on Norris Hall began minutes later.
Tech officials have said they did the best job they could have done with the information they had at the time.
Daniel Carter, vice president of Security on Campus, said Wednesday that if all of the security committee's recommendations are implemented, Tech will be "leading the country." But those suggestions will only be helpful if there's a policy to issue alerts immediately.
greg.esposito@roanoke.com 381-1678
angela.manese-lee@roanoke.com 381-16621
reed.williams@roanoke.com 981-3334
