MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — It’s the first day back for Central Michigan University students, today 13 ON YOUR SIDE took a tour around campus to see the new safety installments for the new year.
This fall, the university is launching new access controls outside 4 classroom buildings for the first time.
CMU Lt. Mike Sienkiewicz says, "So the big thing with that is to be able to remotely secure those buildings. In the event, there is an incident effect and safety here on campus.”
He says the school has been proactive with safety installments... with several other security measures already in place.
“We have about 1300 cameras across our campus. They're inside our buildings are out in our public areas. And they really help us have an understanding of what's going on across our campus,” Sienkiewicz says. "We put in our access controls in our residence halls, we've added thumb-turn locks in our classrooms."
And the advancements aren’t all “high-tech”, he says even small improvements make a difference. With simple additions like adding numbers to the front of door buildings, this now makes it easier for students to let officials know exactly where they are in an emergency situation.
And everything is monitored behind the scenes at their dispatch center handling- 911 calls, tips, and responding to text messages through their safety app.
The improvements don’t stop here- he says the department is always looking for what they can do next.
“We're really looking for opportune moments," says Sienkiewicz. “Maybe a good example is, is a light pole. When facilities plant puts in a new light pole, we're working together to say hey, maybe in the future, we'd like to add a camera to light pole.”
And they are always looking for the community’s help and feedback.
“We're very proactive in building relationships with our students. We're out talking to our students, our community about what we're doing. What do you think we need to be doing here at CMU? So it's not just us, you know, making all the plans,” said Sienkiewicz.
To learn more about the police department’s plans you can visit CMU’S website here.
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