Seminole State College of Florida has received a $ 154,000 grant from the state Department of Education to enhance its emergency notification system.
Part of the grant was used to install speakers in the ceiling of the hallways throughout the college, allowing emergency messages to be heard from most anywhere on campus, said Dick Hamann, vice president of information technology and resources in the Seminole State.
The speakers will complement the university system of emergency notification, which took place in 2009 and can disseminate emergency messages through IP phones speaker. The phones are in every classroom and office on the college’s four campuses.
The grant is also being used to purchase additional software and hardware to improve the current capabilities of the university to help first responders to pinpoint the exact location of the person calling 911 from any campus of Seminole State.
“Thanks to such grants from the Department of Education, Seminole State may direct the emergency messages to a specific campus, a building or even a classroom,” said Hamann. “We decided to have a system where we can really give instructions to the people rather than a random system based alarm.”
Seminole State`s Emergency Operations teams can also students a text message, faculty and staff directly with the information and instructions, and the university web site and hotline are components of the Emergency Notification System as well.
