News

Campus security gets upgrade

 

Grambling State University students should feel safer thanks to the acquisition of new security sesyem. “Today, it is evident that campus violence is becoming much more prevalent in the media, in thus in the minds of students and their parents when selecting a college,” said Winfred Jones. To further ensure the safety of GSU’s campus, the instutution recently installed 260 cameras functioning on the system, which are positioned throughout the campus. The new system is a great upgrade from the 60 that the university was limited with the older system.

Jones, the associate vice president of information technology at GSU, recently had an article published higlighting some main components to the newly installed security system. The article titled, “Grambling State University Implements New Technology to Keep Students Safe,” was published in the 2012 Winter Vol 12/ NO 4 addition of the National Association of College Auxiliary Services (NACAS), College Services magazine 

In the article Jones wrote about the business challenges that the campus security faced writing that, “Although GSU security staff did employ a technologically advanced security system, they were soon faced with limitations.” Additionally, “This small scale IP-based system restricted GSU to incremental implementations of 60 cameras each, without campus-wide unified monitoring capabilities.” With the students safety in mind, Jones consulted Jim Walker of Camera Watch in Jackson Miss., for information on updating the campus security system.  

Jones and his team had a mission and a goal to get a system which would allow them to take advantage of the latest technology, which could provide universal solution across the entire university. 

Knowing exactly what he and his team wanted, they  conducted an extensive research on available products and decided that Genentech’s advanced IP security solution, Omnicast was the perfect fit, being that it was on target with all their needs.

In the article Jones wrote that, “All users at GSU find the system to be reliable, effective in emergency response time and efficient when assessing real-time data.” He believes that “the investment made by the school has not only provided superior protection for the university’s property and resources, but most importantly ensure the safety of the most significant assets, the students and staff members.”

According to NACAS.org, College Services is the quarterly magazine of NACAS. It is published every March, June, September, and December, and serves to enhance and add synergy to the connections between their members.