NIU tragedy bound to spark growth of AU Alert

The number of people signed up for Auburn University’s emergency notification is only going to increase in the wake of Thursday’s shooting at Northern Illinois University.

“As unfortunate as it was, it’s probably going to serve as a reminder to those who haven’t signed up yet to sign up,” said Chance Corbett, AU’s associate director of emergency management in the department of risk management and safety.

AU Alert will send messages to cell phones, land-line phones and e-mail addresses -- as long as students, faculty and staff are registered -- in the event of an emergency situation.

Students across the country have reacted to the latest campus shooting, where Steven Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old former NIU graduate student, reportedly opened fire on a geography lecture just as the class was about to end about 3 p.m. Thursday. His rampage killed five students - Daniel Parnmenter, Ryanne Mace, Julianna Gehant, Catalina Garcia and Gayle Dubowski - and wounded 15 others. He then took his own life. Another individual died Friday.

The massacre was the fifth school shooting in a week, after incidents in Ohio, Louisiana, Tennessee and California left five dead.

“The marketing after an event like that can be huge,” said AU senior Nathan Wallace.

Between a large advertising push before the first full service system test Feb. 7 and the test itself, university officials reportedly more than 2,000 contacts were added to the system database. In the week since the test, Corbett said an additional 600 have been added. Nearly 11,000 people are part of AU Alert currently.

“Everything seems to have done very well,” Corbett said. “We found a lot of people who didn’t receive messages because their information was entered wrong or they didn’t sign up.”

Wallace signed up last month, but didn’t think to encourage his friend freshman Ben Jackson to do so as well. He joked that he could just pass on the messages to Jackson, but after learning about AU Alert Friday afternoon, Jackson thought it would be better if he joined the group himself. Until now, Jackson said he ignored every e-mail reminder about it.

Wallace admitted he was annoyed after receiving a call, voice mail, text message and e-mail during last week’s test. But in a real situation, he’d rather be safe than sorry.

“The more ways we can communicate with students in a time of trouble, the better,” he said.

Whitlyn Miller, an international student from the Bahamas, would also rather be safe since there is no way to control or predict when a campus shooting would happen. She has yet to sign up for AU Alert, which she said, “will make a difference for somebody.”

“All we can do is prepare as much as possible for something like that,” Corbett said. “You can try to prevent it as much as you want, but being prepared goes a long way too.”

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