August 24, 2007 Dear Parent: As you and your student prepare to return to Salem for the upcoming academic year, I wanted to share with you some of the changes Roanoke College is implementing to ensure safety and timely communication on our campus. Following the tragic events at Virginia Tech last spring, Roanoke College formed a task force to review the College's plans for response to critical campus incidents. I reassure you that safety is foremost in the minds of the College staff. Two important items from the task force report are being implemented on campus now. "Maroon Alerts" is a new emergency notification service. This mass text messaging system gives the College the ability to contact students quickly via text messages on cell phones and by e-mail. It is important to know that "Maroon Alerts" is an "opt-in" system, meaning students, faculty and staff MUST SIGN UP for the service themselves at www.roanoke.edu/maroonalerts . Please encourage your student to sign up right away. Even with phones, e-mail and other methods of communication, students, faculty and staff can be difficult to contact when they are in class or out on campus. "Maroon Alerts" gives Roanoke College staff an additional method of contacting the campus community in the event of an emergency or a bad weather situation. "Maroon Alerts" will be supplemented by the usual communication methods, which include campus e-mails and weather changes announced through local media. In addition to "Maroon Alerts," the Campus Safety office has developed an " All Hazards Community Checklist " to give the campus helpful tips for in the case of several emergency scenarios. The checklist is available on the College Web site and will be included in your student's packet of materials when he or she arrives on campus. The checklist includes an "Active Shooter Protocol" to help the campus community know what to do in the unlikely situation where there is immediate threat to safety, such as the one at Virginia Tech. The checklist also includes tips for dealing with medical emergencies, severe weather and fire. In addition to these new protocols for safety, you may also be interested in several of our long-standing practices to maintain a safe College community. The Office of Campus Safety provides 24-hour security services to the campus seven days a week, including holidays. Safety officers are armed conservators of the peace who are trained at a police academy and have arrest authority on the College campus. Campus Safety utilizes a "Community Policing" model that involves safety officers patrolling on foot and bicycles so they have on-going, personal contact with members of the campus community. This approach includes walking through residence halls and academic buildings. As seen at Virginia Tech, the emotional state of just one student can become a crisis. One of the most effective safety practices at Roanoke is regular meetings to discuss students who appear to be having difficulties. As a result of these meetings, troubled students are connected to appropriate support offices. Resources to students in need are provided by Health Services, the College Counseling Center, the Goode-Pasfield Center for Learning and Teaching or through professional resources in the Roanoke Valley. The College offers an onsite counseling center, providing clinical counseling services free of charge to all students, whether they live on campus or off-campus. Roanoke continues to educate students on the dangers of carbon monoxide. The campus also has installed battery-operated CO detectors in all campus buildings. In residence halls, CO detectors have been hard-wired into the same system as our smoke detector and alarm system. This system activates alarms so that occupants evacuate immediately. The system also notifies the College's Campus Safety Office when a high level of the toxic gas is detected in any student room. We also encourage students living off campus to be certain carbon monoxide detectors are installed in their residences if gas appliances are in use. There are many layers of security on the Roanoke campus. Roanoke's residence halls are locked 24 hours a day, and this practice will continue. Emergency phones are placed around campus in strategic locations. Red emergency phones provide direct contact with the campus switchboard during the day and the Campus Safety Office during the evening. Yellow courtesy telephone boxes are located outside residence halls and the Belk Fitness Center. Those phones can be used to call any campus telephone number, including campus safety. The courtesy phones also have an emergency button that dials 911 (City of Salem Police, Fire and Rescue). We are watching closely the work of Governor Tim Kaine's Virginia Tech Review Panel, which is expected to issue a report this month. Roanoke's task force will review the panel's report and recommendations in case we need to make further changes to our procedures and policies. I look forward to having you and your student on campus soon for the start of a safe and productive year. Sincerely, 
Michael Creed Maxey
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