At 8:30 a.m. Thursday, 15 minutes shy of the time the first plane struck the World Trade Center seven years ago, University faculty and staff gathered to discuss an “all hazards” approach to campus safety and emergency preparedness.

“All of us in this post 9/11 world should take (emergency preparedness) very seriously,” said Tim Burgess, senior vice president for finance and administration. Burgess opened the first in a series of academic professional security seminars sponsored by the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness and the Center for International Trade and Security.

Individuals need to take responsibility for their own safety, Steve Harris, director of the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness, said. Student response to tornado warnings issued two weeks ago was troubling, he said.

“We had some students who e-mailed us and said they were waiting on (police) to tell them what to do,” he said. “It’s a little bit disconcerting.”

To encourage students to prepare themselves for emergencies, OSEP will launch a Community Emergency Response Team in mid-October. Working with the Red Cross and the Athens Clarke-County Fire Department, students, faculty and staff will be trained in emergency preparation, Harris said.

The eight-week program will be held at the Student Learning Center and registration information can be found at www.osep.uga.edu.

“Individual preparedness is the cornerstone of emergency preparedness,” Harris said.

“UGA is on track” with its security goals, said Kathy Pharr, assistant vice president for finance and administration. Pharr chaired the Emergency Preparedness and Communications Committee, which was launched after the Virginia Tech shooting.

University police won’t see a rise in salaries anytime soon, though the Committee recommended the hike to improve police retention and recruitment.

“Unfortunately, in the budget climate, we can’t do this right now,” Pharr said.

Safety programs such as UGAAlert were enhanced to ensure successful communication in crises, and several projects are still in progress, Pharr said.

About 90 percent of campus buildings have registered Building Safety and Security Represen-tatives who are trained according to federal government protocol to handle crisis situations. Without this training, the University is ineligible for state or federal disaster funding.

Bids are ongoing for a new security system for Sanford Stadium, Pharr said, and the University received a grant from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to fund the project.

“I hope you’ll agree with me that a significant amount of progress has been made,” Pharr said. “We made a good system better, but we’re not resting on our laurels. We’ll consistently assess what we have in place and continue to make improvements.”