lifeasdaddy - Making a campus safer. George Mason University's emergency alert system.

The official panel examining the Viginia Tech campus shootings of earlier this year has found that more lives would have been saved if an emergency alert had ben issued earlier.

From today's Washington Post story:

The panel appointed by the governor to investigate the massacre at Virginia Tech is critical of the university's response to the shootings and its treatment of Seung Hui Cho, concluding that some lives could have been saved if officials had issued an alert sooner that a gunman was on campus.

Here's the report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel from the Official site of the Governor of Virginia.

Today I was doing some research about George Mason University, which is also located in Virginia.  In a prominant position right there on the GMU home page is a tab with a link to "MASON ALERT EMERGENCY MESSAGING":

This system is administered by the Safety OfficeWelcome to Mason Alert

Mason Alert is an alert system that allows George Mason University to contact you during an emergency by sending text messages to your: Cell phone E-mail (school, personal, other) Pager BlackBerry/Treo When an emergency occurs, authorized senders will notify you using Mason Alert. Mason Alert is your personal connection to real-time updates, instructions on where to go, what to do, or what not to do, who to contact and other important information. What a fine idea.  Could save lives in the event of an emergency. Now let's check on the Viginia Tech home page and see if they've got something prominant and similar.  Nope.  Nothing like that there.