Two days after a student went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, killing 32 people and himself, some local colleges and universities are reviewing their safety procedures.

But with small campuses, lots of individual attention and emergency-response plans that alert students and staff in a crisis, they’re confident their schools are safe.

“We don’t expect it to happen here,” said Robert Dana, dean of students for the University of Maine in Orono. “We’re prepared, though, if it does.”

On Monday, police say Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, shot and killed two people in a dorm room on the Virginia Tech Blacksburg campus. Two hours later he opened fire inside a classroom building, killing another 30 people and wounding at least 15 others before killing himself.

It was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

Because Virginia Tech is something of a giant – serving more than 25,000 students and maintaining 100 buildings on 2,600 acres – small local colleges feel at least slightly insulated from such a rampage.

“I think it would be much more difficult for a student to fall through the cracks here,” said Stephen Heacock, spokesman for Colby College, which serves 1,800 students in Waterville.

Still, after the shooting, Maine schools took notice.

Colby reviews its emergency-response plan every year. It will do so again in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.

The University of Maine at Farmington will also review its emergency-response plan. Bowdoin College in Brunswick holds regular security meetings and will look at what worked and what didn’t at Virginia Tech.

“We don’t want to become complacent,” said Doug Boxer-Cook, spokesman for Bowdoin.

Some critics say it’s easy to see one thing that didn’t work – the way Virginia Tech warned students about the gunman.

The college relied heavily on e-mail and didn’t send a message until two hours after the first shots. Local colleges say that wouldn’t happen here.

“I don’t think you can rely on one means of communication. Not everyone has their computer on all day,” said Jennifer Eriksen, spokeswoman for UMF.

During a crisis, the 2,000-student college can broadcast messages over a PA system, send a mass e-mail, phone students and staff and alert people in person or through local radio stations. It has also designated the student center as an information hub, where officials post signs or place alerts on TV monitors. The college is also considering a system that would send text messages to student and staff cell phones.

“You can never have too many methods of communication,” Eriksen said.

Bowdoin College recently got a system that allows it to send emergency e-mail and make phone calls en masse. The University of Maine uses mass e-mails, individual phone calls and staff members to pass the word of an emergency. It also peppers its buildings with posters.

In Auburn, Central Maine Community College sends mass e-mails and makes mass phone calls. Since it has few buildings, the college can also afford to be more personal.

“We could go out into the halls and do things in person, if we need to,” said President Scott Knapp.

It’s the same at Colby.

“We would use every means possible. It could literally mean people with bullhorns,” Heacock said.

At Bates College in Lewiston, officials refused to say how they notify staff and students in an emergency. The college didn’t want to make that information public.

But while they have emergency-response plans and alert systems, local colleges say what’s really paramount is prevention.

All encourage students and staff to tell campus counselors or officials if they’re concerned about another student. The University of Maine has also trained some staff members to watch for red flags in students’ behavior, and it allows anyone on campus to anonymously report a concern on a college Web page.

“That’s been very important, because the more eyes the better,” Dana, the dean, said.

At Colby, Heacock agreed. Everyone – from counselors to assistant instructors – keeps an eye out for students who need help with mental health.

“It’s something you don’t want to be adept at,” he said. “But it’s something you have to have … because you never know.”