Originally posted by: JarHead413
and by "they" you mean every campus in the country right? Cuz that's what I think.

I referred to lots of "theys" in my post. One of the theys would be police detectives (finding the receipt). The other they I'm assuming is the one you're referring to. I'm not sure what you're trying to say though. Does every campus in the country have some kind of system to notify students? No, they don't. Are other schools implementing something in the wake of this? Yes, they are. UCLA is updating their systems (saw it on the news this morning). I'm sure other students are doing something similar.

Yes, it's a large campus. That doesn't mean there isn't technology available to have a campus wide PA system or even some kind of general alarm.

Regarding text messaging, from what I've heard and read, it was the students texting each other. This seems to have had a far better effect than the emails the administration sent to all the students. Texting, IMing, picture, and video phones all played a much larger role than the emails seemed to have. Perhaps schools can require students to register their mobile phone numbers with the main office (or at least make it optional). If there's an emergency, a system wide message can be sent to all the phones explaining what's going on and where to go/what to do. That may not work but it's definitely an option to consider.