Administrators at colleges around the country closely followed news of the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech on Monday, and campus officials responsible for safety, crisis planning, and risk management began weighing the lessons of the tragedy.
Efficient communication is the most important element of an institution’s disaster response, risk experts said, but getting an announcement across a campus is a difficult task. At Virginia Tech, the first shootings happened early enough that staff members who would typically handle such announcements may not have been in their offices yet.