According to this report, the US Department of Education has given Eastern Michigan a grant of nearly half a million dollars to update its emergency plan.

The grant, worth $490,517 to be exact, is to help EMU lay out a plan in response to Virginia Tech’s April 16,2007 shootings and 2008 shootings at Northern Illinois:

The plan is a comprehensive framework for addressing any emergency situation that could arise, a subject of increasing focus on college campuses in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech and 2008 Northern Illinois University campus shootings.

The grant will allow EMU to make the plan even more comprehensive and do so more quickly than it otherwise could have, said Ellen Gold, executive director of EMU’s university health services.

It is interesting, I mentioned in an earlier blog post that federal or state assistance would be needed for universities to establish successful emergency notification plans.

Apparently, there is a program for this, to an exteent.

In 2008, applicants were accepted for the “Emergency Management for Higher Education” grant program.

As that page shows, some major universities, including Purdue, Indiana and UConn took advantage. Northern Illinois, reeling from its devastating shooting, also received a grant.

However, the grant program had a set deadline and implementation period.

So, the funds are not being awarded on a regular basis to those in need. Instead, they were awarded once.

Additionally, the funds were limited to $500,000 for even the largest schools. Zc