At the University of Chicago, the third Monday in November began with an hour of violence. Around 12:30 a.m., an assailant fired a shot at a staff member who was walking on the campus. At 1:15 a group of men robbed two female students on a nearby street. Just before 1:30, Amadou Cisse, a doctoral student, was shot and killed while walking to his apartment, a half block from the campus. Minutes later, administrators discussed the situation by telephone. Like many colleges, Chicago has a new emergency-notification system, installed after the massacre at Virginia Tech last April. The system can quickly send short text and e-mail messages. But officials did not consider using it in the middle of the night, says Henry S. Webber, vice president for community and government affairs. Instead the university first informed the campus of the murder at 10:40 a.m., in a detailed e-mail message. Nearly eight months after the shootings at Virginia Tech, colleges continue to grapple with questions about how--and when--to alert students to potential dangers. Thus, as more students and parents demand immediate information about crimes that occur on or near campuses, colleges must weigh the speed of responses against the quality of information.