After the third college shooting in the last month, UF officials assured students that they're still safe on campus.
UF President Bernie Machen sent an e-mail Friday to students after a Thursday shooting at Northern Illinois University left five students dead, as well as the gunman, and 16 injured.
In the e-mail, Machen reminded students about UF's emergency text-messaging system and the University Police Department's regular drills in case of emergency situations.
UF tested its emergency text-messaging system for the first time in January. The text reached 86 percent of its intended audience within 50 minutes, he wrote.
UF spokesman Steve Orlando UF spokesman said UF expects to conduct the next test this summer, and the list of recipients now tops more than 50,000.
Orlando said he doesn't think Northern Illinois made any mistakes, but students mostly found out about the situation by sending text messages to each other, as opposed to receiving messages from the university.
Machen wrote that if a major emergency occurred, UF would update its home page with announcements.
Orlando said UF might also use Facebook to notify students about emergencies.
Machen also reminded students that UPD regularly trains for emergencies and coordinates its response plan with the Gainesville Police Department and Alachua County Sheriff's Office.
UPD Chief Linda Stump said the department will conduct emergency training during Spring Break and hopes to train with GPD and the Sheriff's Office this summer.
At the end of his e-mail, Machen wrote that some suggest campuses should be less open in light of recent campus shootings, but UF's atmosphere won't change, he said.
"The openness universities enjoy is the very embodiment of academic values," he wrote.
"Even if we could feasibly place gates at campus entrances and send students through metal detectors, I would argue that building such a police state would serve only to create an atmosphere of fear and closed thinking."
Orlando said students also play a role and should call 911 if they see a gun or sense another threat on campus, he said.
