By SHANNON O. WELLS
When Faculty Assembly held its final meetings of the academic year last spring, campus safety — in the wake of two hoax active-shooter incidents and delays in emergency notifications — was a hot topic.
The start of the 2023-24 academic year has so far been relatively quiet, but concerns about campus safety and the need to re-examine emergency procedures linger for those who visit, work and live on the Oakland campus.
Addressing Faculty Assembly at its Sept. 6 inaugural meeting of the new academic year at Posvar Hall, Ted Fritz, vice chancellor for public safety and emergency management, shared aspects of the training and communication improvements his department worked on through the summer.
He began his presentation, however, with a personalized plea regarding the inherent dangers of a more, well, pedestrian topic.
“One of my main concerns around the University … is pedestrian safety,” he said, noting, on his short drive to Posvar from the Public Safety Building, “how long it took me, and how patient I had to be as everybody is crossing in front of me. You multiply that by how many people are driving cars and how many people are walking. And I just think it’s something to always be conscious of.
“So, just a reminder to be extra patient out there,” he said. “I know it’s tough on hot days, especially. You just want to get where you’re going, but we get a lot of inexperienced students traversing the area, too.”
During the summer, Public Safety dug into a plan to make “some fairly large improvements” in the overall safety posture of the University involving communication; additional availability of campus-wide education and training for students, faculty and staff; and enhancements to physical security.
“Those three areas are what a lot of people concentrated on over the summer,” he said. “To me, I think first and foremost, communication is so important with public safety, getting out ahead of what is actually happening versus what people may think is happening.”
Following two active-shooter hoax calls at or near the University last spring, communication specialists and supervisors in the police department are now trained weekly on sending out emergency notification messages, including scenarios presented to them so “they’re practicing what they’re going to say and about how to do it,” Fritz said. “It’s sort of a pressure situation for them … so the more training they receive on this, the better they’re going to react when needed.”
Also new are pre-planned messages, as in sending out a report of an active shooter while specifying that it’s not yet confirmed. “If it is confirmed, we’ll say that as well,” he said. “So we’ll have that option there to let people know, ‘Hey, police may be responding to a scene. It’s an unconfirmed report, but that’s what we know right now.’ It’s important to me that we get that information out to everybody, so they know what is happening.”
Training
“We have conducted training with both Pitt IT and the vendor for the Emergency Notification System,” he said, as well as ongoing active-killer response training for officers. “The training (is for) the actual response to an active shooter situation, but our officers have done this for quite some time.
“The great thing about the summertime at Pitt is it allows them a lot of time to continue this this type of training. So I just wanted you to know that is something that they are always doing,” he added. “What we needed more practice on, though, was the communications end. I think they’re getting there with that. We want our police supervisors to go to those scenes and be conducting (oversight responses) at those scenes.
“We don’t want them necessarily to be back in the police station sending out a message, but we still need that done. So we’ve reallocated some resources to make sure that that function gets done as well,” Fritz said. “We’ve cross-trained different staff in the police department to be able to do that,” rebalancing workloads to get that done.
New hires
Communications room supervisor: This position will oversee dispatchers and call takers, but also be responsible for sending out messages during an emergency. “At the end of that message you’ll see ‘For more details, go to emergency.pitt.edu,’” he said, noting the Emergency Notification System (ENS) is not intended for constant updates. “We will be updating that website with what is happening, things you need to know during that incident … at least every 15 minutes” or sooner if the situation drastically changes.
Assistant vice chancellor for public safety: Scott Argiro, who retired from the FBI to start at Pitt on Aug. 5. “He is going to run our Integrated Security Department (and) help us with threat assessments,” Fritz said, noting Argiro oversaw the Western Pennsylvania Joint Terrorism Task Force, where he served his last year there as assistant special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh office.
Other updates
Safety video production: The Public Safety department has produced several videos meant to help explain terminology and safety protocols and help answer common questions, including those that came from the hoax-shooter incidents last spring, on lockdowns, evacuation and panic alarms, Fritz noted, as well as a ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ video, which now includes a classroom-based video on “what to do in a classroom (during) an active-killer situation.
“It’s a little startling, but it is what you need to know in those situations,” he added. “I think it does that job.”
Links to the videos will be available through the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Office of the Provost websites.
“One of the things I kept hearing, and I understand it from last spring was, ‘Well, what do WE do’ in an emergency situation?’ And it’s really important to me that you as individuals know what to do,” Fritz said. “The police know what to do and what training they need to do. And the (police) chief knows how to get them to respond appropriately. … Let’s face it, you’re on the front lines first. And so I really hope that this these videos help you, that the training helps you.”
Stop the Bleed: The emergency.pitt.edu site has maps that show where the Stop the Bleed kits are located as well as one for Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). “If you’ve never looked at that, it may be a good idea,” he said. “We have over 138 AEDs located in various places on campus.” Officers all have Stop the Bleed kits and AEDs in their patrol cars.
Alarm tests: Environmental Health and Safety conducted 99 tests of alarms in various academic and student buildings this summer, as well as tested fire protection equipment including sprinkler and fire-suppression systems. “Those are typical things that we would do over the summer and throughout the course of the year,” Fritz noted.
University Safety Ambassador Network: Formerly known as the COVID Pandemic Safety Ambassadors, Fritz said they were asked to stay on after the height of the COVID pandemic passed. “We felt like this was a good group interested in safety overall and a good way to disseminate information out to their various departments.” They are provided with safety information “and we tend to continue to use them to help spread the word,” he added.
Safety campaign: The Office of University Communications has developed a year-long “evergreen” safety campaign, Fritz said, “so you probably will be hearing more about safety throughout the year. Not in big globs. But in bite-sized pieces through videos and tools that your departments can use,” he said.
Call center: Established this summer, the center is meant to address high call volumes in the event of emergencies.
Panic buttons, classroom door locks
As reported recently in the University Times, Pitt’s Public Safety office has installed “panic buttons” in about 400 Oakland campus classrooms.
“You may also see (a button) attached somewhere in the front of the classroom, but if it’s your first time in the classroom, check and see if it does have a panic button,” Fritz said, noting the process started earlier this summer with 38 buttons installed. “We have now 400 of them installed. Facilities Management and Integrated Security spent the entire summer working on installing panic buttons.
“More importantly, I think to everybody, is installing locks on all the classroom doors,” Fritz added of nearly 600 locks. “All classroom doors either have a mechanical lock or an electronic lock now. Several classrooms had no locks. They do now. I think we’re nearly at 100 percent.”
Noting the significant effort and teamwork involved, given the electronic infrastructure in some buildings, “to be able to put that in was just amazing … especially in places like the Cathedral … It was an acceleration that I could only have dreamed about that happened this summer, so I’m really excited about that.”
After showing a video on panic buttons, Fritz explained that pushing the panic button in the Posvar Hall conference room would instantly lock the doors. “Pressing the panic button itself is still going to summon the police, and they know exactly where that button is coming from. So they know where to go,” Fritz said, adding, “you can always leave that (locked) classroom, but you can’t get back in.”
Cathedral security upgrades
In addition to panic alarms and locks, 29 new cameras and new emergency phones were installed in Cathedral of Learning stairwells this summer, with the number of cameras on campus now more than 1,500, Fritz said, noting they are “a great tool to solving crime. And we have great partners in the whole Oakland community as well, as far as sharing video (to) resolve issues.”
Updated electronic infrastructure also is in place at Pitt’s regional campuses “to sort of bring them up to where the Pittsburgh campus is at,” Fritz noted. “We’ve been working quite a bit with them on that. They were a little bit behind as far as camera coverage … but that’s changing, and we’re excited about that as well.”
Safety-related questions
Following his presentation, Fritz addressed some safety-related questions from Faculty Assembly members, including:
CPR/AED training: Fritz said this would be a good opportunity to join forces with the Campus Utilization, Planning and Safety Committee (CUPS) to set up training sessions.
Emergency contact information signs/stickers in classrooms: “I think It’s a great idea,” Fritz said, noting there is a QR code above the panic buttons that explains how they work and what to do in emergency situations.
He added that building occupancy guides are on the Environmental Health and Safety website, including egress routes and where to go during short- and long-term evacuations. “It’s a little-known resource,” Fritz said. “I always say we’re not marketing people … but we need to learn to be, and we’re really getting a lot of support now from University Communications. So I’m happy about that.
“I’m not afraid that we don’t have the resources. I’m afraid that people don’t know about them,” he added. “So that’s really the concentration that we’ll have this year.”
Blue-light phones around campus: “One of the projects of an intern this summer was to go and look at all blue-light phones to make sure they operate. We (already) have a system for that with our police officers. But the phones can have other issues such as graffiti, vandalism, the blue light is not working well.
Despite the prevalence of cellphones, “we’ve actually had instances where someone doesn’t have their phone who (needs) to contact the police and have used (blue-light phones),” he said, adding that there are hundreds of emergency phones, including blue-light phones, those in elevators or inside of buildings that are checked quarterly.
Enforcement of speeding and red-light running vehicles and buses: Fritz noted that the Pedestrian Safety Committee includes representatives from area and regional transit agencies.
“We do have motorcycle units out write citations and warnings,” Fritz said. “But you’re right. People are in a hurry. … And we’re going to need to just slow down a little bit. … Sometimes good people are doing the speeding. They just need to be reminded.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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