Safety

As in any community, there will always be incidents of crime on campus. While the cause is unknown, in many categories of campus crime, the number of arrests went down between 2007 and 2009. Add unified security systems to the mix, and response to crime can be swifter and the number of victims can potentially be minimized even further.

When Scott G. Burnotes arrived at the University of Miami, he found multiple, separate systems for emergency notifications. A third-party vendor handled texting, emailing, and phone calls; sirens had been set up around campus; and some web-based notifications were utilized.

“Their focus was on continuing to build a multimodal method of communication for all types of emergencies,” recalls Burnotes, Miami’s director of emergency management.

Then:

The lecture had run late, and on top of that the sophomore biology major had joined a couple of friends for a cup of coffee afterward to kick around the speaker’s provocative ideas. It was well after midnight when he made it back across campus to his residence hall, where he noticed a side door that was ajar.