New Phone Technologies Can Help Colleges Communicate Campuswide in Emergencies

By JOSH FISCHMAN and ANDREA L. FOSTER

Article: Headline

-->

Article tools

Printer friendly	E-mail article	Subscribe	Order reprints
	Discuss any Chronicle article in our forums
Latest Headlines Universities Must Disclose More Data on Animal Research A court settlement requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make public more information about research on animals, prompting some academic researchers to worry about further attacks by animal-rights extremists. 2-Year Colleges Streamline Student Aid and Focus on Counseling For Provost Who Fled Lebanon, U. of Dayton Is His 'Village' Letters Home From World War II Soldiers Are Found in College Basement

News Headlines From The Chronicle

Scenes from the campus: the day after

How one department is coping

Gunman was a troubled student who ate alone and worried professors and classmates

Profiles of the slain: remembering those who died

When a national spotlight falls on a campus, public-relations officers feel the heat

College risk managers weigh the benefits of emergency notification, other security measures

New phone technologies can help colleges communicate campuswide in emergencies

Audio interview: On an emotional day after, anger toward the shooter and loyalty to Va. Tech

Opinion: Bad  public policy contributes to the death count

Opinion: The legacy of the Texas tower sniper

Grief counseling, campus security, and risk management: from The Chronicle's archives

Education secretary suspends access to student-loan database after reports of lender misuse

As college rankings catch on worldwide, report calls for more analysis and cooperation

Commencement speakers are announced by 15 colleges



Raju Rishi came here to George Washington University on Monday night to pitch a new campus-communications system to students. Mr. Rishi, a co-founder of Rave Wireless, started by asking for a moment of silence. "Because of what happened at Virginia Tech today," he explained.

After a minute he continued: "A lot of what I'm talking about takes on new relevance because this system is based on cellphones."

Virginia Tech officials sent out e-mail alerts about a shooting rampage that killed more than 30 people at its campus in Blacksburg, Va. But few people there received them. Students have stopped relying on e-mail for information, say many college administrators. That trend is prompting colleges to try new technology to immediately notify everyone on a campus of an emergency. Many of the new services are built around the ubiquitous cellphone.

"Our students don't check campus e-mail, and they're not carrying laptops around," said Ronald G. Forsythe, a vice president in charge of communication systems at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore. "But more than 90 percent of them carry cellphones. The best way to get to them is to blast a text message."

Officials such as Mr. Forsythe say they are confident they could warn students and others of a dangerous situation within seconds. Maryland's Eastern Shore campus, in Princess Anne, Md., uses a system from Mr. Rishi's company.

David J. Bopp, associate vice president for telecommunications at New Jersey's Monmouth University, bought a system called Connect-ED, which sends out both voice and text messages. "I can reach people anytime, anywhere," he said.

The City University of New York's Bernard M. Baruch College also uses Rave's service. On most days, it helps students keep abreast of campus events, see which laptops are free for borrowing, and which campus study rooms are available, but in an emergency, it can also serve as a campuswide public-announcement system.

The college started the service a little over two years ago, and found it helpful during an incident last summer in which the power went off on the campus, said Arthur Downing, Baruch's chief information officer.

He said the local utility company, Con Edison Inc., told Baruch administrators that because of excessive demand for electricity in the area, the company would shut down the power on the campus in half an hour. Within minutes, Baruch's director of communications had sent students a text message alerting them to the outage and telling them that classes would be canceled.

One problem with a system like Rave is that, on many campuses, enrollment in the programs is voluntary, so many students are not covered. About 4,000 of Baruch's 15,500 students have signed up for the free cellphone service and receive the campus bulletins and alerts. But Mr. Downing said that this week he is reminding students who have not enrolled in the program that it might be wise to do so.

Monmouth's Mr. Bopp said that his program, which started in January, had 600 students enrolled as of Sunday. "On Tuesday I saw another 50 had signed up," he said. "I think Virginia Tech got people's attention, and I expect more enrollment now."

Butler University, in Indianapolis, installed a new Internet-based phone system on its campus in 2005. As part of the service, the offices of faculty and staff members, as well as dormitories, are equipped with a total of about 1,200 phones that immediately warn people, via audio and text messages, of an emergency on the campus.

Scott A. Kincaid, Butler's chief information officer, said the university realized it needed an effective and fast public-announcement system after a police officer was shot and killed on the campus in 2004.

Mr. Kincaid said the university had used the system to warn people on the campus of impending tornadoes. Mr. Bopp said concerns about hurricanes along the New Jersey shore drove his institution to adopt its alert system. Weather worries, he hopes, may have helped Monmouth better prepare for a storm of human fury like the one unleashed at Virginia Tech.