Text messaging could be a life saver on campuses
Since Virginia massacre, schools are
abandoning emergency e-mails for phone alerts
By YOAV GONEN, Staff Writer
Staten Island Advance, Sunday, April 29, 2007
Since the April 16 Virginia Tech massacre that killed 32, dozens if not hundreds of colleges and universities nationwide — including the College of Staten Island and Wagner College — have considered or have started shifting their emergency-notification systems to one based on text messages rather than e-mail.
E-mail, which Virginia Tech administrators relied upon, only reaches students who are online through personal or portable computers. Text messages reach anyone with a cellphone — in other words, just about every college student. Critics of the Virginia Tech response contend that earlier warnings through text messages may have saved lives.
Last week, in fact, Wagner College turned that consideration into action, signing an agreement with ClearTXT, a mobile-messaging provider.
Although the system offers alerts for a variety of circumstances such as class announcements and schedule changes, Wagner intends to reserve it solely for emergencies, and on a voluntary basis, according to college personnel.
“Student safety is always our primary concern,” said Joe Romano, a college spokesman. He added that Wagner has a close working relationship with the city’s police and fire departments for emergency situations.
He said the school’s range of emergency notification options — such as bull horns on the low-tech end, a campus-wide public-address system, as well as the new text messaging technology — reflected its attempt to prepare for any kind of emergency, from a snowstorm to a tree falling on a building.
“We try to cover all the bases,” he said.
The College of Staten Island had been considering a text-messaging system prior to the Virginia Tech tragedy, and it is also considering a siren-like warning device, according to Bob Huber, director of communications.
But he added that the campus already has a number of emergency-notification systems — including e-mail, a public-address system in all academic buildings, an electronic sign at the campus entrance, and public-safety officers on patrol — that together “could have virtually everyone communicated to on campus within really just a matter of minutes.”
As for text messaging or other future alert systems, he added that “the primary consideration is what will work and what will work best.”
Rather than requiring students to be online to receive information, text-messaging systems allow officials to reach a significantly larger proportion of the student population — and notably, those outdoors or commuting onto campus — with a blanket dissemination to cellular phones, BlackBerries and wireless, hand-held devices.
“If other schools are moving toward [text messages], I think we should, too,” said A.J. Ramphal, student government president at the College of Staten Island. “We have an e-mail system that students hardly check.”
Like Wagner, the College of Staten Island also relies heavily on cooperation with local police precincts and fire houses. That relationship was strengthened after 9/11 and following a review of the entire City University of New York’s (CUNY) security procedures in 2003 by Kroll Associates and then-senior consultant, former New York police chief William Bratton.
The CUNY system also relies on roughly 6,000 peace officers to handle the more common incidents on its 20 campuses, according to campus personnel.
“When we run into a situation beyond that, I think Bratton’s advice was to ensure that a high level of communications exists between the campuses and the local precincts,” said CUNY spokesman Michael Arena.
A spokesman for St. John’s University declined to comment on the school’s security procedures.
Like many schools around the country, Wagner and the College of Staten Island also took the step to remind staff and students to be vigilant about reporting anything out of the ordinary to campus officials — even though similar warnings about the Virginia Tech gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, did not avert the tragedy.
In a letter posted online a day after the Virginia Tech tragedy, Wagner College president Richard Guarasci told students they “should never allow anyone inside of our residence halls who does not display the appropriate ID card.”
The uptick in vigilance was also meant to include staff members keeping tabs on students who act erratically or uncharacteristically — which at the College of Staten Island may have produced a slight upsurge in reports to the counseling center.
“Just after (the Virginia Tech shootings), during the week, some people did contact the office to say they were concerned about a student or students that had been in their class before,” said Mary Murphy, associate director of the college’s counseling center. “People can be very observant, and they can notice through their own experience that someone isn’t doing so well or that their behavior is off.”
And while the balance between maintaining security and slipping toward hyper-vigilance can be tricky, there seems to be a tendency to err on the side of safety — especially with the memory of a tragedy so fresh in mind.
“What happened at Virginia Tech is a rare situation, but we have to be prepared in case we have a scenario like that here,” said Ramphal, the student government president. “You’re not going to wait until something happens here like at Virginia Tech and then implement the situation.”
Yoav Gonen covers education news for the Advance. He may be reached at gonen@siadvance.com.
Copyright © 2007 Staten Island Advance. All rights reserved.
