As the November 2015 Paris attacks were unfolding, Syracuse University Abroad personnel learned that some students traveling in the country independently had not filled out the mandatory travel forms that notify SU officials of their whereabouts in case of an emergency.

Every SU student in Paris at the time of the attacks, including those without traveling without the mandatory forms, was eventually reached and confirmed safe by SU Abroad.

But in the year following the November 2015 Paris attacks, SU Abroad has nonetheless made changes to security polices to improve its communication with students. It’s currently testing a new two-way international emergency notification system similar to the Orange Alert used on campus in Syracuse.

The Paris attacks left 130 people dead, with hundreds of others injured. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the coordinated teams of gunmen and suicide bombers who targeted different areas of the city, including popular tourist destinations and soft-target public places.

Approximately 60 SU students were in the city when the attacks occurred, said Jennifer Horvath, manager for marketing and communications at SU Abroad. No SU students died nor were any injured.

“We felt something was wrong. We got off the subway (and) everything was dark. It was eerie,” recalled Christine Chung, a senior communications and rhetoric major, who was in Paris last November traveling with a group of friends from the SU Abroad London program.

Margaret Himley, the associate provost of international education and engagement at SU Abroad, and Horvath remember the attacks well. They each noted that SU Abroad was able to quickly reach students who they knew were going to be in Paris on that Friday night through social media, texts and phone calls.

Unsure of who was in the city traveling without independent travel forms, SU Abroad contacted every student in Europe — who amounted to roughly 800 individuals at the time — Himley and Horvath said.

In the year following the attacks, SU Abroad has placed a greater emphasis on the required travel forms, Himley said.

Chung, recalling the night in Paris, said she and her friends had filled out independent travel forms with the London program and were thankful they had. The group received outreach from a London program staff member asking if they were OK.

In light of the attacks, SU Abroad set out to create a communication platform that would allow for international two-way communication between SU personnel and students, Himley and Horvath said.

“If you think of Orange Alert here, it’s really about telling you an incident happened that is eminent, it’s in progress, there’s a risk associated with that incident,” said Tony Callisto, senior vice president and chief law enforcement officer for the SU Division of Campus Safety and Emergency Services.

Callisto — who also serves on SU’s international risk management team, which assesses and determines the course of action for the security of students abroad — said the development of an international counterpart to Orange Alert is ongoing. He added that the international alert system will, initially, be solely used for the SU Abroad programs in Florence and London.

He said the system has been successfully tested in both locations and is “about ready to go.”

The next step will be working out how to employ the international Orange Alert at other SU Abroad programs, Callisto added.

The Orange Alert system currently used on campus in Syracuse is a form of one-way communication where an authority disseminates information. However, the international Orange Alert also enables students to respond to alerts.

“The design is really … to give the student a resource to be able to let us know they’re safe and that we can account for them,” Callisto said. “We’ve got a very good track record, when these incidents happen, of within a 24-hour timeframe, actually being able to make contact with every student even without the (international) Orange Alert. … So the use of the (international) Orange Alert is intended to make that immediate.”

Both Himley and Horvath, though, pointed out that SU students in Europe don’t always have WiFi, international data plans or opt to purchase flip phones as opposed to smart phones.

“It’s an improvement, but it won’t cover all possible contingencies,” Himley said of the international Orange Alert. “I don’t think there will be a magic bullet that will work for everything.”

The international Orange Alert will work in concert with the preexisting methods used to contact students, Horvath added.

As well, Horvath said, the new alert system will have no cost to SU. While it is much different from the on-campus Orange Alert, it is still part of the same emergency notification system. The university purchases the system from the American software company Rave Mobile Safety.

Sasha Perugini, the director of SU’s Florence program, explained the new Orange Alert in an email.

“SMS and voice alerts have been tested successfully to international and USA phone numbers in Europe and tests will continue each semester,” she said. “Secondary bulk SMS messaging systems based in Europe are also in place as a backup.”

Himley said there is the potential for risk everywhere: from walking to main campus in Syracuse, to traveling across Europe.

“We are of course committed to international education experiences,” Himley said. “So trying to balance that commitment, that deep passion about the value of being abroad, with safety.”

Published on November 14, 2016 at 1:56 am

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek