Overview

July 20

College campuses are like small cities. And just as in a city, you need access to the best, most up-to-date information and breaking news to protect your residents – your students, faculty and staff – in an emergency. Whether it’s a pandemic, an extreme weather event, a natural disaster or an on-campus public safety emergency, higher education institutions need relevant, actionable information to keep the campus safe in times of crisis.

Real-time AI platforms can alert you to breaking news as it happens, providing you with a clear picture of emergency events as they unfold, enabling you to mitigate and manage crises more effectively.

Join us July 20 for a webinar on how your university can leverage technology to gain better insight on emergency events that impact your campus. As a participant in this interactive virtual session, you’ll learn:

How to improve overall awareness by receiving real-time, breaking news alerts from across the public information landscape, including social media, blogs, information sensors and the dark web
How to streamline communications triage with one-to-many notifications
On-the-ground examples of how universities turned real-time alerts into action

Speakers

Bill Rials — Moderator

Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government

William (Bill) Rials, Ph.D., is a professor and associate director (department chair) of the Tulane University School of Professional Advancement IT and Cybersecurity Program, where he focuses on continually delivering and updating the program curriculum based on innovative and emerging technologies. Before transitioning to academia and higher education, he had a diverse gov tech career delivering value to state agencies, local governments, and law enforcement agencies throughout the state of Mississippi. He has served in CIO, CTO, and CISO roles for local governments and also in various leadership positions within the state of Mississippi’s IT organization as a deputy to the state CIO. Dr. Rials holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Belhaven University, a master’s degree in computer information systems and cybersecurity from Missouri State University, as well as a Ph.D. in higher education administration and public administration from Jackson State University. His dissertation research involved the critical factors that affect the adoption of cloud services within the public sector. He is a noted expert in the IT and cybersecurity space and is frequently quoted by national media outlets. He is also a frequent contributor to national IT government organizations such as NASTD and NASCIO.

Will Huser,

Assistant Vice President, Communication and Global Security Operation Centers, Department of Public Safety, New York University

Will Huser currently has oversight of NYU's Department of Public Safety Communications Center, which includes the University’s emergency line and Public Safety dispatching capability, and is comprised of 17 personnel operating in a 24/7/365 capacity. The Communication Center responds to calls for service globally, as well as providing critical situational awareness during emergent incidents. Additionally, he supervises the Global Security Operations Center, which is charged with distilling local and global open source information and providing decision quality information in both routine and emergency events. The GSOC is also responsible for the travel safety and security for all University travel, covering 15,000+ trips to 120+ countries annually.

Chauncey Bowers

Emergency Services Manager, Wake Forest University

Chauncey Bowers’ professional background includes a 21-year career with the Prince George’s County, Md., Fire/EMS Department, in addition to significant interaction with law enforcement, emergency management, news media and public works agencies. After moving to North Carolina, Bowers served as executive director of security and emergency management at Central Piedmont Community College. He has also been a consultant with a wide range of clients on developing emergency plans and procedures, designing and conducting exercises of plans, and more. Bowers serves as the University’s emergency services manager. In that role, he leads and coordinates emergency management responses and programs.

Webinar

Using Real-Time Information to Keep Your Campus Safe