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Monday, Sept. 26, 2016
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Water guns brighten serious problem ALICE teaches active shooter safety Sam Malone Staff writer
DeKALB | ALICE, a program
that teaches participants how to react in an active shooter situation, has expanded to provide public seminars for students, faculty and DeKalb residents.
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We went through the scenarios actually acting them out. That made me realize how important it is to be proactive in the situation and not just sitting and hiding somewhere.” Kortney Maedge Sophomore biology major
For the last two years, NIU’s police department has been working to establish ALICE, which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate. The national program aims to build the confidence of its participants when responding to an active shooter. NIU Police Officer Jason McCauley has led seminars at NIU since the university adopted the program in February 2015.
He said that police have been work ing to expand the program to inform people on the choices they have in active shooter situations. “We’re focusing a lot more on the students,” McCauley said. “First, we started with staff members, and now we’re doing it where it’s open to the public. So, we’re casting a larger net.” McCauley said the NIU police try to make the seminars less intimidating by handling it with a light-hearted tone. Maedge said the seminar is fun because the situations are demonstrated with water guns which is a relaxed way to approach a serious problem. The NIU police are providing more classes and times including the night seminars, which McCauley said were made available for students’ convenience. The program is offered as a class assignment for students enrolled in UNIV 101 or 202. The seminar became mandatory this semester for housing staff such as community advisers. More than 130 housing staff members went through training in August. Sophomore biology major
Local voting begins Oct. 24 Early voting will begin Thursday in DeKalb County, but polls will not open on campus until Oct. 24. Voters can register online at bit.ly/1YodC57 and at polling stations.
DeKalb Township, 2323 S. Fourth St. Early and grace period voting Oct. 24 to 28
8:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Oct. 29
9 to noon
Oct. 30
10 to 4 p.m.
Oct. 31 to Nov. 4
8:30 to 7 p.m.
Nov. 5
9 to 5 p.m.
Nov. 6
10 to 4 p.m.
Nov. 7
8:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Holmes Student Center, Blackhawk Annex Early and grace period voting Oct. 24 to 28
Noon to 7 p.m.
Oct. 29
9 to noon
Oct. 30
10 to 4 p.m.
Oct. 31 to Nov. 1
Noon to 7 p.m.
Nov. 2 to 4
10 to 5 p.m.
Nov. 5
9 to 5 p.m.
Nov. 6
10 to 4 p.m.
Nov. 7
8:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Kortney Maedge said the experience was fun and informative and attended the seminar in August before becoming a community adviser this semester. “It made me learn a lot about active shooter situations,” Maedge said. “I went into it expecting it to just be a lecture, but I left feeling really surprised and knowing a lot about how to react in active shooter situations.” The seminar is three hours long and begins with a PowerPoint presentation. The first situation is based on participant knowledge of what to do in active shooter situations. From there, the lesson becomes very interactive with participant-led conversation. “We went through the scenarios, actually acting them out,” Maedge said. “That made me realize how important it is to be proactive in the situation and not just sitting by and hiding somewhere, because that doesn’t work.” The NIU police try to keep the program as up-to-date and useful as possible, McCauley said. The department does so by taking immediate feedback from participants which is implemented
into t h e prog r a m hours after being received. McCauley said the survey completed by participants after the seminar consistently shows the confidence of participants in how to respond improves. Attending the seminar was one of her favorite parts of training, Maedge said. She said the seminar is important and students should attend, because they could learn a lot. “People just believe what they see on television, [which is] called the CSI effect,” McCauley said. “So when they see a person with a gun, they just think back to [the movies] where everyone’s going to die, and that’s just not true. So if you come to our sessions, you’ll understand there are a lot of things you can do [in active shooter situations], and you’re not powerless.”
Photo illustration by Andy Cozzi | Northern Star
ALICE protocols • Notify those in danger of the active shooter. • Secure the area and prepare for an encounter with the attacker. • Consistently provide accurate information about the incident to responders. • As a last resort, challenge the attacker and regain control. • Leave the danger zone as soon as one can do so safely.
Updates given at Town Hall Julia Martinez Staff writer
DeKALB | President Doug Baker and Provost Lisa Freeman discussed updates about the state of NIU’s budget, enrollment and Program Prioritization during a Town Hall meeting 10:30 a.m. Thursday in the Holmes Student Center, Regency room. The meeting lasted an hour and ended with audience question and answer.
Budget NIU was given $91.1 million in state appropriations for Fiscal Year 2015. In FY16, the budget was reduced by $26.4 million. The partial budget NIU received for FY17 is $48.3 million, Baker said. NIU received this level of
funding because of the year-long budget impasse that resulted from state lawmakers disagreeing with Gov. Bruce Rauner on a budget for FY16. Until the budget passed in June, state budget appropriations could not be dispersed, including funding for higher education. “I think this lays the context for us that we need to be making some serious changes at the institution,” Baker said. “We are doing that. Over the last three years, we have reduced our expenditures by about $45 million dollars.” Baker said it is difficult to sustain higher education for the students anywhere in the state with the level of funding NIU is receiving, but administrators plan on spending the budget on necessities like the
Student center renovation • The project is being put up for approval during Tuesday’s Illinois Board of Higher Education meeting 1 p.m. at St. Xavier University. • The $20 million set aside for the project came from a set of Build America bonds. Holmes Student Center renovation. NIU will potentially spend a portion of its $192.7 million auxiliary fund, which can only be used towards facilities, to renovate the first and second floors of the Holmes Student Center. Continue reading about the Town Hall meeting at NorthernStar.info/News
Frontier restores campus 911 services Kristen Lookingland Staff writer
DeKALB | Emergency 911 phone services are working after Frontier Communications Corp. engineers resolved a hardware or software issue that disabled NIU’s service from 7 p.m. Sept. 19 through 2:20 p.m. Sept. 22. Frontier Communications, a telecommunications company that operates NIU’s 911 service, experienced an issue in the hardware or software in Frontier’s switch, the device that makes and breaks the connection in an electric circuit. This caused the 911 emergency service at NIU and in DeKalb, Sycamore, Boone, Stephenson
and Ogle counties to not function to its normal standard, according to a press release from Frontier Communications.
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If [anyone called] the emergency number, they would speak to one of our dispatchers and it would be the same thing. ” Don Rodman NIU Police Commander
Frontier engineers diagnosed the issue Sept. 19 and designed a solution to reroute phone traffic so 911 calls could be completed while Frontier’s technical team worked to resolve the outage,
according to the press release. “If someone were to call 911 [on campus], they would be routed to the appropriate police agency at [that] point,” NIU Police Commander Don Rodman said. “If [anyone called] the emergency number, they would speak to one of our dispatchers and it would be the same thing. If they for some reason call 911, they would get our dispatcher again based on the proximity of where they are on campus.” Agencies in the surrounding areas affected by the outage each handled the situation differently. Continue reading about the outage at NorthernStar.info/News