Ka Leo O Hawaii

Issue date: 11/15/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy of Metro Creative Graphics The University of Hawai‘i is required by law to alert all students, faculty and staff when there is an emergency on or around university grounds. Mass e-mails are sent out either by the Chancellor's Office or Campus Security.

A man tries to kidnap his ex-girlfriend. A person is overheard on a bus talking to himself about shooting 30 University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa students. A man tries to entice a female student into his car and follows her when she doesn't get in.

When a crisis happens around UH Mānoa, it falls on Gregg Takayama, director of communications, to decide how to inform the university students, faculty and staff of the situation.

"It sort of depends on the nature of the emergency," Takayama said.

Takayama is the person who writes the emergency alerts that students and faculty occasionally find in their UH e-mail inboxes. He added, however, that Campus Security, the chancellor and the vice-chancellors hold the power to send out their own mass e-mails as well.

Takayama said UH is required by the Clery Act, a federal law enacted in 1990 requiring colleges to inform students about crime around campus, to alert students if a violent or serious crime happens within an approximate two-block radius of university grounds.

"We put out an e-mail as soon as we can," Takayama said. However, based on previous incidents, some e-mails are not sent out until several hours later. He explained that he works with Campus Security on what to include in the e-mail and when one should be sent.

"We don't want to clutter (e-mail inboxes) with stuff that is too minor," Takayama said.

Despite the delay in sending out some e-mails, Takayama said that they are still beneficial. "I think they are effective. They are effective as a whole system. The best way to communicate is to have a variety of communication avenues available."

In the event of an emergency

For campus issues, such as whether to cancel classes or lock down the campus, Takayama said that UH Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw is consulted.

An e-mail sent to all students, faculty and staff on Oct. 25 might have left some baffled. One was sent at 1:40 p.m. alerting the UH community to a person overheard threatening to shoot 30 students, while less than two hours later, another was sent at about 3 p.m. stating that normal campus operations would resume.

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