Primetime with Kemel Dawkins and Aaron Graves

In an emergency, Duke's staff, faculty and students will get information quickly and in numerous ways.

Join Kemel Dawkins, vice president for Campus Services, and Aaron Graves, associate vice president for Safety and Security, for Primetime on Dec. 11, as they discuss safety at Duke, and how the university community will be notified during an emergency. The forum is at noon in Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center.

"This issue has been taken very seriously," said Dawkins, who led a review of Duke's emergency plans in coordination with President Richard H. Brodhead, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask III and other senior leaders. "The university has devoted considerable effort into reviewing our current procedures and identifying best practices at other institutions. Our new plans will significantly improve our preparedness."

Since the shootings at Virginia Tech in April, Duke has analyzed its emergency response policies and procedures, researching best practices at other universities and studying new technology and communications systems.

Among enhancements, Duke will invest in new, dedicated computer servers to send an alert e-mail to all students, faculty and staff more quickly. The university is purchasing a siren and voice-announcement system to broadcast messages across campus.

Also, a special website has been developed for the Duke community to learn more about notification and the crisis communication plan. On the site, Duke community members can sign up for RSS feeds such as the alert.rss feed that would notify subscribers after an emergency is reported. The site also will have other feeds for updates as an emergency unfolds.