Classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill start on Aug. 19, and with the first day comes new safety measures.
There are several recommended changes in the after-action report reviewing the Aug. 28, 2023, shooting on the university’s campus. The changes include license plate readers, which have been in effect since late spring.
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“Particularly, on campuses like ours that are entirely open, where people drive on and off all the time,” said interim Chancellor Lee Roberts. “So, it's just a way of being able to track which cars are on our campus."
Roberts told employees Friday that better connected cameras are also now on campus.
"The problem we had with our cameras was we didn't have them in enough places,” Roberts said. “Not enough of them were connected into a system that allowed us to see the footage in real-time, and there wasn't a centralized place where you could see the footage that was available."
The university is also working to make Alert Carolina messages more clear with a Spanish language option as well.
In addition to hardening the security infrastructure with classroom locks, faculty and staff can be involved in their own safety with new online trainings available.
"I think that will serve us well, it's clearly identified in the after-action report as something we could do better,” Roberts said.
In another safety change, people will need a key card to get into the South Building, where the chancellor’s office is located. It comes after demonstrators vandalized the South Building with paint and chalk on May 11 during a pro-Palestinian rally.