At top, two people mourn after the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech. At right, emergency phones have been installed at Providence College.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

Audra Steinberg and about two dozen other students were in a political science class at the University of Rhode Island on March 3 when their cell phones buzzed at once — with the same text message.

“You could see everyone look at their cell phones at the exact same time,” the 22-year-old senior said. “I looked at mine, and said, ‘Oh my God, there’s a bomb threat!’ ”

They were all reading an emergency alert about a threat the police were investigating at Independence Hall, two buildings away. Only minutes before, hundreds of students and staff had been evacuated from that three-story building and a bomb squad was preparing to go inside.

But the students in Steinberg’s class at Washburn Hall, and thousands of other students, faculty and staff all over campus, wouldn’t have known anything about the potential crisis if it hadn’t been for the messages sent by the university’s four-month-old notification system.

The emergency alert system that URI is using is similar to what other colleges and universities in Rhode Island have adopted in the aftermath of the massacre at Virginia Tech. Nearly a year after a mentally unstable student killed 32 people and himself the morning of April 16, public safety officials and universities say they have adopted new measures and expanded existing ones meant to keep their campuses safe.

“It was that call to action, a wake-up call that everyone needed,” said Kristen Cyr, spokeswoman for the Community College of Rhode Island.

Virginia Tech’s tragedy forced colleges and universities nationwide to look at their own emergency plans and whether they are doing enough to prevent a similar attack. In Rhode Island and elsewhere, colleges have looked at how they handle students with mental-health issues, improved ways of communicating quickly with the campus community, worked closely with law enforcement and developed plans to handle a shooter on campus.

And yet, even colleges with plans and training have faced tragedy on their own campuses. Last month, a student at Louisiana Technical College shot and killed two other students and herself in a classroom. A former graduate student opened fire inside a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, killing five students and himself. Afterward, the university president told the media, “I don’t know if any plan can prevent this kind of tragedy.”

Over the last year, Rhode Island has hosted several campus safety workshops for public safety and college officials, including a recent visit by Virginia state troopers who had responded to the Virginia Tech shooting. Listening to their experiences, “you got a sense of why it’s so necessary to have emergency notification systems and why it’s so necessary to have plans and drills,” said Maj. Michael P. Quinn, safety director at Johnson & Wales University.

One of the biggest issues is communication during a crisis, said former state police Maj. John Leyden, executive director of safety and security at Providence College. “What’s critical is getting the word out to faculty and students that there is an emergency on campus and to react as quickly as possible,” he said.

Many local colleges and universities have set up notification systems and encouraged faculty, staff and students to sign in their phone numbers and e-mail addresses to receive text, voice and e-mail notices during emergencies. Aside from URI’s bomb threat, so far, none of the colleges has used their notification systems for anything more pressing than snowstorms that have canceled classes.

The day of the bomb threat, the URI system sent alerts to the 8,039 people in the university community who had signed up for the system; within 28 minutes, all had gotten the message, and some had received it via three or four methods, such as text message or e-mail, said Linda Acciardo, director of communications and marketing.

“The key for us is, if we’ve got a kid walking on the quad in Kingston or on the beach in Narragansett, what’s the quickest and best way to get him?” said URI spokesman Dave Lavallee.

The system is as good as those who participate in it. Providence College automatically signs up students’ contact information so they can get the notifications and allows them to opt out if they don’t want to be contacted. However, when other colleges ask students to sign themselves up, participation drops to about 30 percent to 50 percent.

While URI is one institution relying on students to sign up, the university knows that students who get the message are likely to tell those around them, Acciardo said. In Steinberg’s class, the students immediately told the professor about the message.

As she walked across campus after the bomb threat had proved unfounded, Steinberg said, she overheard a group of students talking about the notifications and how they were glad to be told what was going on. When one of the students in Steinberg’s class admitted that he hadn’t signed up for the notifications, “everyone looked at him like, ‘Why don’t you have it?’ ” she said.

“I just think it’s an efficient system overall, a good system for a big university to get in contact with people if they’re not at their computer,” said Steinberg, an intern in the university’s communications office.

And if technology fails, there’s the less high-tech backup — such as bull horns and intercom systems in security vehicles for outdoors.

URI, Rhode Island College and Johnson & Wales University have installed more “blue-light” phones on campus, which connect callers directly with emergency dispatchers. Providence College is retrofitting its blue-light phones with an intercom system so the college can announce emergency procedures.

Brown University has installed three sirens, which were tested last month, to be used during life-threatening situations such as a tornado, armed intruder or a large chemical accident. Roger Williams University and Johnson & Wales are also looking into adding siren systems for immediate threats, particularly at Johnson & Wales’ Harborside campus, near the Port of Providence.

Several schools have installed security cameras throughout campus grounds. Besides on-campus security, local police have access to the cameras.

What the dozens of cameras at PC have caught so far have been campus antics, such as the time a group of students lifted a woman’s car and placed it in a fire lane, from where it was promptly towed. “This is a college,” said Leyden with a chuckle.

PC took a step further than any other Rhode Island institution by setting up a full emergency operations center — with multiple computer and phone connections, video from the surveillance cameras, a generator and outside hookups compatible with the city’s Mobile Command Center — and hiring a full-time emergency management director.

Koren Kanadanian, the new director, says his role is to bring together all aspects of emergencies, from public safety and public health. And, guided by the memory of the December 1977 dorm fire that killed 10 students, PC will train students on evacuating buildings and going to “rally points,” so officials can be sure everyone gets out safely.

After reports surfaced about the Virginia Tech gunman’s mental deterioration, local colleges and universities set up workshops for faculty and staff to help recognize the signs of students under pressure — from financial troubles to mental-health issues. They also established committees that include representatives from campus safety, faculty, residential life and counseling to meet regularly to raise any concerns. The counseling officials don’t reveal which students are in counseling, but the meetings allow the officials to hear about the issues, offer advice, and sometimes, gain insight into those who they may be helping, said John King, vice president of student affairs at Roger Williams University.

“We’ve had several examples where we’ve been able to get to [troubled] students and talk to them and get them referrals for help, and do some preventative things that we would not have been able to do in a vacuum,” King said.

For all the schools’ security measures to work, it’s up to students and instructors to register, such as signing up and providing contact information for the notification system. That’s where a little peer pressure and the curiosity factor help spread the word.

When Brown University tested its text message system recently, William Hunter, vice president for administration, said he was standing on the college green the moment the message went out. “I looked around and I saw students all over, reaching into their backpacks for their phones,” Hunter said.

After the siren was tested, Hunter sent an e-mail out to the students who weren’t signed up for the notification system. About 3,500 were already in the system, and Hunter asked the rest to join. Within two days, he said, 500 more people signed up.

amilkovi@projo.com