As gun shots rang out on April 16, 2007, a campus dissolved into chaos, and the world watched. Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people on campus before killing himself. That day of mass-murder is still shocking and hard to forget - even hundreds of miles away.

"We were all shocked, obviously. It's a terrible thing anytime anything like this happens," said Chris Scrivner, an MU staff member. 

"I never thought it could happen on anyone's college campus," said Bryan Okpala, an MU student.

After the shootings, staff, faculty and students on campuses like MU began to question their own safety.

"Virginia Tech should be enough to let the faculty know that we need more security on our campuses and stuff," Okpala said. 

"My first thought was it could (have) been Virginia Tech, (so) it could (have) been the University of Missouri," said Cathy Scroggs, MU Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs. She said the university already had an emergency plan. "After that incident, we made sure we reviewed it again."

"The university takes campus safety very seriously. We have made sure we put procedures in place. We use technology," said Bryan Weimer, MU police captain. 

In the case of an emergency like that at Virginia Tech, the call would be made by the MU police to the university's decision-makers at Jesse Hall. Text messages would go out to students, faculty and staff - at least those who have signed up for emergency phone calls and text message alerts. 

"We have a very good protocol that we follow so we know who's going to do what," said Scroggs.

While these measures are helpful, some say prevention is vital. 

"They should reach more towards those students and stuff to diffuse the issue before anything grows from that, because apparently nobody was listening to this kid," said Okpala.

MU officials said they have it covered. 

"We have a group called the At Risk Behavior Committee, and we meet every other week," said Scroggs.

Group members review cases of students they believe could be dangerous. Still, officials can only do so much. 

"It's critical on our campus that people make sure they have their own plans in place and have thought to themselves how they can get out of an area and know what to do," Weimer said.

That is a lesson and a legacy from the Virginia Tech massacre. The university said fewer than 8,000 out of 28,000 students, or one out of every four, have signed up for either the text or phone alerts.