Reporter Paul Post took this picture of police
responding to Monday's bomb scare on the
Skidmore College campus. 

No one was hurt, thank goodness, when Skidmore College faced a couple of recent safety threats — the Oct. 1 lockdown prompted by the presence of an accused rapist, who was apprehended, and Monday’s bomb scare, which, happily, turned up nothing and resulted in canceled morning classes. The police did their jobs well in both cases. And what is also worth noting is how well the school’s emergency notification system works. The college wasted not a second getting its warnings out, using texts, email, updates on skidmore.edu, and notification via Facebook and Twitter, as well as alerting the region's media. The notification system worked. In addition, in both recent cases, Skidmore sent emails to parents after the emergencies were resolved.

I asked the college communications folks for more details, and Dan Forbush explained that Skidmore has the ability to send an emergency alert to students and employees simultaneously by phone (converting the typed message to voice), text, and email, and also deliver it instantly to their own home page, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. “When an emergency arises, Campus Safety uses e2campus to summon all the key people to a conference bridge, so that we’re able to constantly pool our information and determine essential messages to be transmitted, not only to students, faculty, and staff, but also to parents. It takes a lot of teamwork,” Forbush wrote. 

After incidents like these, the dean of students and campus safety director review what went well and what could have done better. “We always learn a few valuable lessons that help us confront the next emergency situation, whatever it may be,” Forbush said.

“It’s worth noting that in both of these recent incidents, students played key roles,” he added. “In the first, students spotted the intruder and immediately reported it to Campus Safety. In the second, it was a student who found the threatening note and brought to Campus Safety. We appreciate their vigilance and assistance.”

We appreciate the students’ vigilance, too, as well as the good work of the college and police.