Campus Safety–Always Safe, Now Even Safer

A series of individual initiatives undertaken at UMass Boston over the past couple of years have collectively resulted in a significantly upgraded campus safety infrastructure and a much safer campus. The IT Project Management Office and Division of Network Services, in partnership with Campus Safety, have worked tirelessly during this time to implement police communications improvements and new emergency management systems to create a state-of-the-art public safety system rivaling that of any university in the nation.  

This effort, at least in part, originated with a mandate that police communications at the university adhere to new state and federal regulations governing their functionality, starting with how emergency 911 calls were being transmitted and traced. To facilitate compliance with some of the new regulations, the Next Generation 911 (NG911) system was integrated into the campus phone system and activated with our campus police partners.  

NG911 is a cloud-based software solution that provides 911 accurate location information (ALI) for our campus hardwired phones,” Director of Network Services Jamie Soule explained, which basically means that the system can ascertain the physical location 911 calls originate from based on where they are located on the UMass Boston network. NG911 also allows for compliance with another new state regulation, that campus 911 calls had to transmit directly to the Boston Police Department while simultaneously going to UMass Boston Campus Police, and the ALI capability means the police know where to go or can call back the person in case of a hangup. 

Part of the project included new electronics equipment and their installation in precise locations across campus needed for regulatory compliance. We needed to “deliver our police station what’s called a P25 compliant radio system, which includes more powerful and state of the art digital radios; and a new digital high available antenna system on our campus,” as Jamie described it. “In the back end there are antennas that these radios connect to that enhance radio coverage on campus. Right now, we have an antenna on the roof of the Healey library,” he added as an example. But it was not as simple as sticking one antenna here and another over there. “We identified the West Parking Garage and University Hall as the new fault tolerant high availability antenna locations, so that if one antenna goes down, they hit a button and the other one comes online.”  

Jamie made a point of emphasizing how much collaboration was needed from entities and departments on and off campus to successfully bring this project to completion, with special kudos given to the UMass Boston IT Project Management Office and Director Terry Phalen. “There was so much involvement by various departments, we could not have done it without our Unified Procurement Services Team (UPST) and partners like Campus Safety, Student Affairs, and IT services. But first and foremost, the IT PMO office drove this bus with all of us sitting in the seats behind it.” For his part, Terry was quick to pass on any credit to principal project manager Sheri Ryder. “Sheri’s facilitation of the project was to make sure she’s got the right people at the right place at the right time and executing tasks with follow up, just as with any project management responsibility,” Phalen said, in affirming she performed all these duties perfectly.  

The bottom line for the entire UMass Boston community is that thanks to the incredible effort and commitment of everyone involved in this venture, the UMass Boston campus has become a much safer place to work and pursue an education.