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Brittany Hunt was watching her graduate classmates struggle with technology for a presentation when she got the notice on her phone. 

“Run, hide, or fight,” it read.

In shock, she tried to grab her classmates’ attention, but the tech issue seemed more pressing.

At about the same time, a shooter elsewhere on the campus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte had opened fire in a classroom, killing two and injuring four others.

No one in Hunt’s class knew that Tuesday afternoon.

Then, more phones pinged, and the class quickly snapped into high alert. Students shut off the lights and pushed a table in front of the door. They checked social media, texted loved ones and watched the news in silence.

The university continued to send updates throughout the afternoon, including when police arrested the suspected shooter, a former student. Hunt said she felt sadness for those who had died and were injured, but she felt comfortable with the university’s response.

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“The campus did everything correctly,” she said. “Even though I felt terrified, I felt as safe as I possibly could have.”

It’s a depressing reality. Mass shootings remain a possibility for colleges, and many, as shown by UNCC’s response, are prepared for them. Schools’ focus must now expand, experts say. 

“As a nation, we have gotten pretty good at responding,” said Jeff Allison, a special adviser to the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. “I think where we’re really starting to focus more on is preventing these attacks.”

That includes telling students, faculty and staff about spotting the signs of potential violence. It also involves the creation of anonymous reporting systems or combing through social media to spot potentially dangerous people ahead of time, said Allison, who has also worked with the FBI.

Police should also study cases where potential school violence was averted, he said.

Build a wall? Not at a university

Universities can be particularly hard to protect against people with bad intentions. They tend to be open spaces, especially public colleges like UNCC, and it can be hard to track everyone who comes and goes.

What’s more, colleges don’t really have an interest in changing that, said Steven Healy, the CEO of Margolis Healy, a consulting group focused on campus safety.

“The open campus is a feature of American higher education that will never go away,” Healy said. “We want people to be able to freely travel across campus. This is who we fundamentally are, a place for the open exchange of ideas.”

Even the best preventive measures may miss someone, Healy said. It’s unfortunate, he said, that mass shooting training is needed. But it’s the only way people will know what to do if someone opens fire on campus. The reality is university leaders now have to add this to their list of responsibilities, even if they never signed up for it.

Riley Howell: Victim in UNC Charlotte shooting ‘gave his life’ to save others

An unwelcome possibility

Most on campus seemed to share Hunt’s opinion that the university responded quickly and effectively. Devin Williams, a 19-year-old sophomore, said he was in his dorm when he first found out about the shooting online.

A university message followed shortly after. He praised the police. “They came out incredibly quick, started securing areas, getting everyone safe.”

On UNCC’s baseball field, moments before a scheduled game, the response was just as swift. Mason Herbert, a freshman baseball player, heard a helicopter buzzing overhead. Then he saw two dozen police officers running past the bleachers toward campus.

“Our field director came on the field and just told us to run,” he said. “The moment the coaches were told, they got us off the field. They were pretty quick.” The team sheltered at an indoor practice facility. 

“Before I felt very safe (on campus), and with the response from police, I still feel pretty safe,” Herbert said.

A shooting may lose its terrifying edge. For Hunt, the education graduate student, after about 20 minutes of being in her classroom, fear led to antsiness, especially once the class learned the shooter had been captured. At one point, Hunt said, students briefly left the classroom to visit the bathroom.

A day after the shooting, it still feels “surreal,” she said, but possible.

“Unfortunately, just thinking about America, it almost seems inevitable,” Hunt said. “Even before this, it felt inevitable.”

Contributing: Mollie Simon of The Greenville News in South Carolina; David Thompson of The Citizen Times in Asheville, North Carolina

Education coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation does not provide editorial input.