Spartan community,

As fall semester progresses, I want to take a moment to provide you with a campus security update. Working to create a safer and stronger community for all Spartans is paramount to everything we do at the Department of Police and Public Safety, or DPPS. Over the summer, our department and campus partners have been hard at work enhancing several different initiatives.

Below, you will find the status of ongoing safety and security measures.

MSU Alert enhancements

The university’s mass notification system, also known as MSU Alert, is the primary way we reach campus and community members in case of an emergency or crisis. Recent updates include:

• This summer, we began automatically enrolling cell phone and preferred/primary residence phone numbers for students and employees into the MSU Alert system and SafeMSU app. That has led to approximately 27,000 new entries in our system and, through partnerships with Academic Affairs and MSU IT, more than 46,000 students have confirmed or reported a cell number in the system. We encourage all students, faculty and staff to log in to EBS or SIS to update your contact information. You can update notification preferences by visiting alert.msu.edu, and you can download the SafeMSU app and enable push notifications to receive MSU alerts.
• DPPS, working with MSU IT Services, has integrated the campus desk phone system to receive MSU alerts at the East Lansing campus. Work continues at other MSU campuses.
• MSU continues to enhance its siren system and is working with a vendor to expand our outdoor notifications to areas north of the Red Cedar River. Installation for that project begins in late fall. Work also continues to enhance additional Green Light phones with speakers to have the ability to broadcast the emergency tones and messages; that project should wrap by the end of the year.

Security Operations Center

The permanent space for the new MSU Security Operations Center, or SOC, is completed and in use as DPPS continues to centralize our university’s security systems. Twelve full-time employees, organized into four teams, have been trained to staff the center, which is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. More than 2,000 building alarms and roughly 1,900 cameras are monitored across the East Lansing campus, providing real-time surveillance. We continue to integrate existing camera systems from across campus to provide real-time coverage. The center also monitors and controls access points to buildings on campus.

Active violence incident training

A new instructional video has been added to the department’s YouTube channel. We also encourage students and employees to take MSU’s online-based active violence incident, or AVI, training, which is available here by logging in with your MSU NetID and password. Once logged in, click the Launch button to begin the course. The training includes an e-learning presentation and knowledge checkpoint questions to measure understanding. In addition to the online training, MSU DPPS offers in-person training for students, faculty and staff. To request in-person training, please visit our Community Program Participation page.

Door lock installations

MSU Infrastructure Planning and Facilities worked to install hundreds of new door locks for classrooms and teaching lab spaces throughout the past year and completed installation for all identified classrooms in August. The new locks allow those inside the room to lock the door while still allowing emergency personnel to enter. You can learn more about the new locks on our Safety Tips page.

Other safety initiatives

• In addition to your physical safety, MSU has significant resources available to campus community members focusing on your mental, emotional and social health. More information for students and employees is available at University Health and Wellbeing, in addition to information on crisis and after-hours care.
• Other student support resources, such as information on the student conduct system as well as information on MSU’s Anti-Discrimination Policy and Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct and Title IX Policy are available on MSU’s Support and Reporting Resources page.
• Finally, as the president outlined in his Aug. 8 message to campus, while we realize there are difficult conversations and passionate emotions centered around many national and global events, we all must be committed to building a more inclusive community by engaging in civil discourse. More information, including FAQs, are available on MSU’s Freedom of Speech website.

As the fall semester continues, look out for one another as we continue our commitment to making the Spartan community as safe as possible. If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know at info@dpps.msu.edu.

Sincerely,

Doug Monette (he/him)
Interim Vice President and Chief Safety Officer
Michigan State University