In light of not only shooting rampages like those at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, but also the unsolved murder of a UW – Madison student, some universities say a campus’s safety is becoming a marketing point for prospective students and their parents.

As orientation gets underway at state universities, a UW – Stevens Point spokesman says a number of parents have expressed concern over how a crisis situation on campus would be handled.

At least UWSP’s campus, he says he’s able to them they implemented and tested a working emergency alert system last year.

"A campus wide e-mail that goes out [to] anyone on the university network,” said UWSP spokesman Stephen Ward. “Also any networked computer in any of our buildings would receive a pop-up emergency message that would essentially override whatever's on the monitor."

Some campuses are starting programs where students can sign up to receive text messages in the event of an emergency, but Ward says UWSP won’t be doing that quite yet.

He says cell phone providers have told the University sending out a mass text message to more than 10,000 people would essentially crash the cellular infrastructure in Central Wisconsin.