The campus shootings at Virginia Tech and, more recently, Delaware State University have prompted colleges across the country to sign contracts with vendors to help push messages to students’ cellphones in an emergency.
Some colleges, like Rice University and the University of Maryland at College Park, have already put their systems to use. Rice sent alerts to students and others on the campus last month after the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin flooded Houston. And just last week, the University of Maryland at College Park sent an alert about a carjacking on its campus.
Still, Maryland’s student newspaper, The Diamondback, took the university police to task for not sending out an alert after a student was sexually assaulted this month near the campus. “A more opportune time to use the text-messaging system … can hardly be imagined,” an editorial last week stated.
“To me, the two crimes seem to be of equal concern,” Kevin Litten, editor in chief of the newspaper, said during an interview.
In response to the editorial, Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the university police, said in a letter to The Diamondback that the emergency text-alert system was used only for violent crimes that were “in progress.” —Andrea L. Foster
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