Dear editor,
People respond to stress in different ways, but how we respond in the wake of something like the recent lockdown is an important part of the character we seek to develop as Hillsdale students. I, for one, have put considerable time and effort into finishing up the resupplying and reorganizing of my first aid kits since the lockdown, work which I began over spring break. Seeing that such incidents as shooting threats are generally unlikely and therefore the drills are less common, the officials, students, and law enforcement involved handled the lockdown quite well. Certain flaws need to be addressed so that we can be better prepared moving forward, however.
Something I have been discussing with several other students since the recent tornado scare is an apparent flaw in our emergency alert system. As my father — who worked in telecommunications for many years — reminded me after the lockdown, even the most efficient means of automatically calling a couple thousand people is going to take a long time. My parents never received a phone call about the lockdown despite being properly listed to receive such calls, and I did not receive the call until over an hour after the lockdown had been lifted, although the latter part is probably due to the fact that I have terrible cell service in Hillsdale township.
While the campus mass email system does alleviate this slightly, a mass texting service for campus security would be much more effective in situations like the lockdown or the tornado warning. My off-campus house took shelter in time, but only because of the SMS-based statewide emergency alert system.
Mass texting is much easier and faster than mass calling, as well as more effective for students like me, who have poor reception in the area yet still receive text messages fairly easily. I was, in fact, texting a friend long before the lockdown call reached my voicemail without even leaving a missed call notice.
Additionally, most people will not drop everything to read an email the same way they will with a text message, and students who do not have smartphones cannot receive emails on their phones even if they want to read their emails immediately. Between the tornado scare and the lockdown, we had two situations within a month of each other when security has needed to tell us to take shelter immediately. While the former incident was made easier by the use of tornado sirens, calls and emails alone were not sufficient for the lockdown.
Sincerely,
Ilsa Epling, ’18
