The reality is we live in an unsafe world, and our college campuses are becoming a stage for the violent actions of disturbed individuals. From Virginia Tech to Northern Illinois, tragic incidents where students have opened fire, killing and injuring fellow students have filled the news media and weighed heavily on our minds.

Ignoring these incidents in correlation to our own campus and thinking that “it could never happen at Simpson” coincide with the reality of our surroundings.

Sadly, it has taken incidents such as these for colleges across the country to realize that a campuswide system for informing students of emergencies is not just a good idea–it is a necessity.

Simpson’s administration has taken a vital step forward by implementing their SAFE emergency alert system, and creating a working plan for reaction if any “worse case scenario” were to take place.

The efforts don’t end with the administration and the simple fact is that the system won’t work if the student body doesn’t register. We live in the information era, with multiple ways to be reached at any given time–including landlines, cell phones and multiple e-mail addresses.

Go online and give your information to the SAFE database. It’s a few minutes of your time that could mean the difference between you being left in the dark in the time of an emergency or being armed with life-saving information.