As the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting rampage draws near, UC Santa Cruz officials say their campus is about as prepared as it can be for such a scenario or other emergency, but they are striving to do even more.

In the past year, the campus has appointed an emergency planner, completed a new emergency operations center, established an emergency services Web site, hired more mental health counselors and put up thousands of new crisis instruction posters across campus. UCSC also plans to bring on five additional police officers and install a text-messaging system that could send emergency alerts to the cell phones of all students, staff and faculty.

Still, Vice Chancellor for Business and Administrative Services Thomas Vani said, "There are areas in which we want to improve."

UCSC says many of the initiatives it is planning and has already carried out were in the works even before a special task force released a university-wide campus security report on March 12 that identified improvements while noting areas needing attention. The UC Regents will review the report during a meeting today in San Francisco.

After the mass shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University left 33 people dead last April 16, UC President Robert Dynes formed the task force -- with Vani as its sole UCSC member -- that explored gaps in student mental health services and identified a need to streamline student privacy rules to facilitate communication about potential risks.

"The university can take pride in the many positive and proactive actions that it has already taken over the last few years to ensure the safety and security of the entire campus community," the report states. "However, despite this proactive record of recent accomplishments ... it became clear to the task force during the course of its review that much can be done."

The task force made up of 18 university officials and one UCLA student made numerous recommendations for all campuses, including:

• Developing or fine tuning an "active shooter" scenario training plan.

• Bolstering mental health services.

• Reviewing security of all campus buildings.

UC assessed a 3 percent hike in its registration fee for all students this year to increase the budget for student mental health services by $4 million systemwide. UCSC used its cut, $329,000, to hire a mental health case manager and other counselors who will extend services during the summer.

UCSC Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Felicia E. McGinty welcomed the additional funding for mental health services, saying the program has been historically underfunded.

Regarding the complicated student privacy restrictions that might hinder officials sharing information about suspicious activity, McGinty said residential life staff, faculty and other students are free to pass along concerns about a student's behavior or mental state of being with the Dean of Students because such information is not part of the confidential educational record. Officials can require students to receive mental health counseling through the student judicial process, if they land in hot water over another issue.

Although mental health counselors are bound not to disclose details of treatment, they are required to contact authorities if they have good reason to believe clients pose a risk to themselves or others, McGinty said.

Vani said UCSC has long had a plan for how to deal with an active shooter, including closing traffic and responding to the scene with police and on-campus paramedics, Vani said. Although the campus has not run an active shooter drill in recent years, he said he believes UCSC is prepared to keep as many students safe as possible.

Third-year art student Toan Do, who used to live on campus, said, "It's kind of impossible to tell if something like that is going to happen." But, he said, "I feel completely safe."

As UCSC awaits installation of its new text-messaging system, Vani said the campus already has the capability to send a mass e-mail to anyone with a UCSC account, call every campus phone with a recorded message and broadcast emergency notices via the campus radio station, KZSC 88.1 FM.

Vani said communication with local authorities is also strong and well-tested, including radios that work on the same frequency.