Sean McGee looked out at the audience of university administrators assembled at UAA. The group was assessing UA's emergency response preparedness, and it had asked the UAF police chief what he thought the No. 1 threat was to the university.

His answer: "A school shooter."

McGee flipped through a PowerPoint slideshow that listed shooting incidents college campuses nationally had encountered. He watched the audience of about 20 people for reactions. Some seemed indifferent. Others nodded their heads. He looked at Kate Ripley, UA's director of public affairs and the person who would have to coordinate statewide communication about a shooting. Her mouth dropped.

"Oh man, I drove that home to her," McGee said.

This was the scene March 21. Less than a month later, 32 people would be shot dead at Virginia Tech. McGee said normally he doesn't get an audience like the one he had in Anchorage. Now the active shooter scenario has been pushed the to forefront of the agenda of university emergency planners.

"We're prepared for it, but it's going to be a tragedy, much like it was at Virginia Tech," McGee said.

In the days following the Virginia Tech massacre, campus leaders reviewed their emergency plans while trying simultaneously to reassure students, faculty and staff that they would have the situation under control. The police have trained for this, and plans exist, but McGee said the university has never run a drill for a shooter on campus.

That will change this summer. McGee said in the wake of Virginia Tech, university administrators are allowing the police to run an active shooter drill in the dorms and buildings on campus.

The training isn't new to the police. Every six to eight months, UAF police and other agencies in the city receive training for an active shooter. During winter break, more than 20 cops, including UAF police, participated in a mock emergency in West Valley High School.

Until now, though, the police haven't had a chance to practice in areas unique to a campus, like the stairwells and narrow hallways found in dormitories.

"All of those issues are unique to a dormitory," McGee said.

In e-mails circulated through campus and internally, the heads of the university have hinted at their own visions for campus security. Chancellor Steve Jones has said the university "will revisit our own security and emergency preparedness policies and practices to ensure we have not missed anything we could be doing better."

In his e-mail to the campus, President Mark Hamilton noted the university had a disaster preparedness task force that would work to prepare the statewide system for the emergency. He also said he saw a role in the university continuously training in drills such as Northern Edge, Alaska's premier joint training exercise operated by the U.S. Army.

The e-mail provoked a critical response from a faculty member, Abel Bult-Ito, who questioned why Hamilton would "refer to military exercises when the events at Virginia Tech had nothing to do with a national emergency, but was the result of a mentally ill person using over the counter guns to kill other people?"

Hamilton responded: "The fool that believes that the Virgina Tech scenario is the only thing we have to fear will not be prepared."

Indeed, a shooter isn't the only emergency scenario UA could face. Earthquakes, avian flu, floods and forest fires have become principle focuses for the statewide system's Disaster Preparedness Task Force, formed in September. In 2005, UAF hosted drills for mock terrorism attacks. McGee said he sees environmental terrorism and computer-assisted identity theft as looming threats.

UAF Fire Chief Edi Curry said she's taking a hard look at campus facilities for general safety. She noted that the recent clearing of trees around campus has cut down on some problems for the campus.

"Not only does it look nicer, but when you look at it, it also makes it so someone can't hide."

A major issue in the Virginia Tech shootings was whether the university communicated the emergency soon enough to students. The university did not lock down the campus until two hours after the first two deaths occurred.

Carla Browning, director of communications at UAF, sat in meetings with campus emergency responders Friday to see what the university could do to bolster its communication mechanisms in the face of a crisis.

Already mass e-mails are possible, which could alert faculty and staff at their computers. Most students probably would not notice the e-mail, but staff could relay the message, she said. Residence Life may have to go door-to-door to alert students in the dorms, she said.

UAF would also relay a message to local media. And after the Virginia Tech shootings, Browning has been told UAF could do mass phone calls.

"We do have a capability of doing instantaneous voice mail to the university, which I didn't know until last week," she said. "We haven't deployed that."

However, she noted, the technology would only work for phones set up with voicemail, which is primarily found in campus work phones.

For campus planners, figuring out how to contact students is key. Many students do not regularly use their home phones or campus e-mails, and instead use cell phones and personal e-mail accounts. Browning said the university is looking at technologies that could contact students through those mediums if an emergency struck.

"There are some technologies out there," she said. "Cost-wise, I haven't really explored that. And I don't know how well they work."

McGee is waiting for the final report on the Virginia Tech shootings before he makes concrete recommendations on training. But he said he'll look "to see what I'd be up against if that happened here."

"We can't allow this kind of thing to happen in vain," he said.