Unified communications and collaboration tools have become an essential ingredient of modern education, not least of all because remote learning has expanded our understandings of what a “campus” can be. Professors can lecture from virtual classrooms, deans can host Q&A sessions with prospective students worldwide, and students can collaborate on projects from the comfort of their own homes. Unified communications technologies allow for seamless connections between students and staff across the entire campus ecosystem. The integration of communication features like voice calls, video conferencing, group chats, and messaging help to create a learning environment that transcends physical boundaries, making education accessible and engaging for all. With the right technology, such integration also enables administrators to provide ideal learning experiences to students, scale to accommodate periods of peak demand, and streamline communications between departments or sites, all while saving on operational costs.
Unified communications and collaboration solutions also benefit higher education with improved campus safety and emergency response. It goes without saying that ensuring the safety of students, faculty, and staff is a moral imperative. In every emergency, time is of the essence. Relying on a complicated communications system, one that makes the delivery of essential information difficult, puts students and staff at unnecessary risk. Available communication technologies go well beyond emergency call boxes by integrating notifications, video surveillance, and mass communications. A number of technologies incorporate intuitive interfaces and embedded emergency notifications. With these, administrators can instantly disseminate critical information during emergencies, assuring that swift responses and evacuation procedures are not only possible but can be relied on at even the most challenging of moments.
Communications Strategies for Campus Safety Officers
In 2022, a report from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) examined how police departments have increased accountability and transparency, highlighting the legislative shift on the federal, state, and local levels towards communication and de-escalation. The report examined the top roles performed by campus safety officers, including emergency response, event management, violence prevention and safety education, and transportation services, in addition to traffic and parking services. In their varied roles, the report suggested strategies for campus security leaders and their departments to liaise with their communities and communicate information about their services. One such strategy is making security policies accessible to the campus community through various channels—announcements via email or on the campus website, the distribution of newsletters, presentations at student orientations, and/or community dialogue events. Another communications strategy for campus security leaders is to collect data on campus perceptions of university safety and develop an ongoing review process for department actions. According to the NASPA report, 56 percent of surveyed campus police departments conduct climate surveys of the campus community, and 50 percent held town hall events to liaise with students and other stakeholders. (In terms of data collection and assessments, the need for increasing such conversations is evident.) A third communications strategy for campus security leaders is to clearly define its values and priorities. Campus safety teams should communicate the values of the department first and foremost on their website, says the report. For departments making changes to their policies, the goals, timeline, and outcome of those changes should likewise be published on their site. Another key strategy for campus security leaders is to incorporate the perspectives of faculty, students, staff, and university leadership in campus safety efforts. The NASPA report stressed involving advisory boards in decision making.
An effective campus security infrastructure is essential, but it’s the campus safety team who brings it to life. Their work requires the use of a variety of devices for day-to-day communications. Devices may include cell phones, two-way radios, mobile apps, key cards, biometric systems, and visitor management solutions. Two-way radios remain the most common method of communication for campus safety teams, and these are available in different types of receivers: most common are portable transceivers (“walkie-talkies”), which are battery powered and have a self-contained speaker, microphone, and antenna; also common are mobile transceivers, which are larger units designed to be mounted in vehicles.
Two-way radios are functional and reliable, but many higher-education institutions are now moving toward modern biometrics. With the help of modern biometrics, universities of any size can adapt to the unique challenges of their industry and protect with confidence everyone on campus. Legacy systems that use an array of disparate technologies—access control units, video surveillance cameras, and health safety devices—are no longer sufficient to handle the needs of a modern university. A centralized, biometrics-based system, however, can unify every vital device and give universities unprecedented control over the campus in a manner that aging physical access control systems (PACs) can’t.
There are several ways biometrics can optimize a campus. For instance, biometric systems establish a centralized database of known student and faculty identities, each with their own set of access rights. These identities can not only be used to manage access to student housing, athletic facilities, and other locations across campus but to keep track of time and attendance for workforce management purposes. Accordingly, biometric systems consolidate devices located at all entry points. It is not uncommon for campuses to have card readers to control access and cameras positioned above doorways to monitor for security threats. A single biometric reader, however, can fill the role of authentication and video surveillance, saving both money and space through consolidation.
Biometrics also offer another benefit for campuses over traditional systems, one that has become negligent to ignore in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the onset of the pandemic, it became clear that campuses were largely unprepared for the task of protecting students from health-based threats. For locations that had already implemented biometrics, the challenges of managing such a devastating situation were greatly reduced. Modern biometrics, like facial recognition devices, offer touchless access control solutions that work to eliminate the spread of germs through shared touch surfaces. The latest models even offer the ability to detect elevated body temperatures to filter out potential carriers of fever at the door.
Meanwhile, unlike card readers that require easily lost credentials, biometrics empower users to become their own credentials. With a single swipe of a finger or presentation of a face, users can be through the door more quickly and easily than ever. Biometrics provide convenience not only to campus security teams but to students and employees, as well.
Maximizing Notification Systems
For college campuses, a notification system must quickly alert large volumes of people across numerous channels. To achieve this level of agility, specific functions should be included in every college’s mass notification system. Mass notification systems should integrate multi-channel broadcasting, those which include email, SMS (text messaging), voice calling, and social media. This ensures that everyone, no matter their location on or off campus, is made aware of emergencies. Additionally, robust notification systems should integrate with other campus alert systems such as emergency lights, fire alarms, or even automated doors; they can also connect directly to local emergency dispatchers. Scalability is another crucial factor in maximizing notification systems because college campuses are ever changing and therefore require a messaging alert system that can grow with the campus as it evolves. How a campus’s emergency system is designed, implemented, and subsequently maintained will likewise impact its emergency messaging capabilities and ease of use.
Finding the right partner to evaluate notification needs, budget, and goals is imperative to getting the most out of any alert messaging system. A geofencing feature should be used to define coverage areas to ensure messages are sent to the right people in the right places and at the right time. Immediate reporting of this kind provides insights into notification delivery and confirmation so that safety officials can monitor the efficacy of their response. Maximizing notification systems can also be achieved with customized messaging. Customizable and pre-written messages allow for flexibility when responding to any situation on campus. This will enable administrators to quickly communicate key information without the need to type it if an incident occurs. Similarly, a mass emergency notification system should be able to send automated alerts based on predefined criteria, which in turn allows for immediate notifications with minimal effort from campus administrators. Finally, mass emergency notification systems should be routinely tested throughout the academic calendar, in which case the campus community should be notified prior to the performance of a campus-wide test.
The goal of any higher-education institution is to provide education for students and to do so in a safe environment. Policies and procedures for campus safety are essential—and so are the technologies that allow for seamless, immediate alert and response strategies. Higher-education institutions that embrace digital connectivity operate efficiently while leveraging technology to do more as needed. As leaders in education, administrators and campus safety teams must continue to assess if current technologies in place fit the community campus’s needs for the present and future.
