Senseless tragedy is a reminder

The February 14 tragedy at Northern Illinois University was a sobering reminder that all universities are vulnerable to such acts of madness, no matter how well prepared they may be. Here at UIS, we are maximizing the safety of our students, faculty and staff by augmenting our response plan with a new emergency notification system. It allows us to reach the members of the campus community more rapidly in case of a life-threatening emergency. So far, more than 1,000 of you have signed up to receive text message alerts, and we encourage all of you to do so at https://emergency.uis.edu/ . We have stepped up our efforts to complete detailed emergency plans for each building on campus, and are looking for other ways to keep our campus safe and secure. Meanwhile, our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who died at NIU on Valentine's Day. Our thoughts are also with the students who were injured. We pray for their full recovery.

(To hear our police chief talk about safety, watch the first part of my recent "Chancellor's Chat" by clicking on "Sights and Sounds" on the UIS homepage."