SOUTH BEND — Professors at Indiana University South Bend paused for a moment of silence Friday for those killed and wounded a day earlier by a gunman at Northern Illinois University.

"We must take all of these incidents seriously," Alfred Guillaume, IUSB’s vice chancellor for academic affairs told faculty during an Academic Senate meeting. "If there is ever a time that you are concerned about any campus activity or concerned about a student’s behavior, please let us know."

IUSB, like many colleges across the nation, has been strengthening security measures since last April, when a student gunman killed 31 people at Virginia Tech University.

IU adopted an emergency alert system on all its campuses, including IUSB, that allows campus authorities to notify students and employees via phone, cell phone, text messaging, e-mail and other means if an immediate safety threat is known on campus.

Marty Gersey, IUSB’s campus police chief, said Friday he conducted a small test of the new system about a week ago involving about 10 people. The messages were received almost instantly, he said.

The system hasn’t been tested campus wide. IUSB recently sent a notice to all students and employees, asking them to update their phone and e-mail contact information with the university.

IUSB also is instituting a system that allows alerts to be sent directly to the technology desks in classrooms. If a teacher were giving a PowerPoint presentation, for example, a security alert would interrupt that program and the emergency alert message would pop onto the screen.

IUSB is in the midst of a campus risk assessment to improve safety procedures.

Campus police tested a siren system on campus in December, but that system requires more study, Gersey said. It’s not clear a siren would be heard on all parts of campus or that students and employees would know how to respond, he said.

"Emergency planning and preparedness is an ongoing thing," Gersey said. Campus violence is not the only concern. Colleges also must prepare for the possibility of natural disasters, explosions and pandemics, he said.

Ivy Tech Community College last semester purchased an emergency alert system for all its campuses. The system will provide e-mail and text message alerts to individuals who provide their e-mail addresses and phone numbers to the college. Administrators hope to test the new system in the next few weeks.

Ivy Tech has budgeted to install public-address systems at the South Bend, Elkhart and Warsaw campuses this year. None of those buildings currently has a PA system.

Bethel College in Mishawaka has a phone system that allows emergency messages to be announced via speakers on about 350 digital phones on campus. The college also can send alerts by e-mail.

Bethel has ordered hardware for an emergency-alert system that will be capable of sending text-message alerts to cell phones, said Wally Nehls, the college’s chief technology officer. The college plans to test that system in April.

The University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College each added emergency alert systems in the past year.

Saint Mary’s recently tested its emergency notification system and reported that 95 percent of the test messages sent via phone, cell phone, text message or e-mail were delivered successfully.

Saint Mary’s students and employees gathered in campus chapel Friday afternoon to remember the victims and to write condolence notes that will be mailed to NIU.

Notre Dame also has tested its emergency notification system.

The university has a Web site — http://emergency.nd.edu/ — that provides detailed information about campus emergency procedures. In the event of an emergency, that site will provide status updates and news.

The university also can issue emergency warnings via the campus cable TV system.

The Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, issued a statement of condolences to those impacted by Thursday’s shootings.

"The prayers of the Notre Dame community are with our colleagues at Northern Illinois University, and all who have been personally touched by this senseless act," Jenkins said. "We share in their pain and ask God’s grace on them in the wake of this tragedy."

Notre Dame will honor the victims of the NIU shootings at a Mass this weekend during the annual Junior Parents Weekend.

Stay with WSBT.com and read Saturday’s South Bend Tribune for the latest on this developing story.