| Message Received: UMPI's Emergency Alert System |
|
|
| Written by Laura Mooney | |
|
In the event of a school-wide
emergency, communication is a necessity.
Until recently, UMPI had relied mainly on e-mail, radio and television
announcements to inform students and faculty that the campus would be
closing. Of course, this becomes a
problem if people do not check any these before leaving for class; they would
never get the notice. Dean Christine Corsello
began to talk to students and faculty about ways to send mass messages. One student said that "the best way to get in
touch with me is on my cell phone, by calling or texting." Corsello looked into a few different methods of notification and came across e2Campus. This is a company which will allow students, faculty and staff to receive emergency messages, via mobile phone text messaging, land-line phone message, or an email. Other schools have used e2Campus and have found it to be useful and cost-effective. UMPI is currently in a one-year contract with this emergency alert system. It is free for student, faculty and staff use, and only requires the individual to sign up for a preferred form of contact. This can be done by accessing UMPI's homepage: www.umpi.maine.edu. The University has also employed a second form of sending messages to students, faculty and staff. Television monitors have been placed in various locations across campus and act as electronic bulletin boards. Community and campus events and information are displayed. If an emergency should occur, that, too, would be posted. To determine where the monitors should be placed, the dean talked to the student senate, to the university senate, and consulted with her advisory panel of students. Combining the opinions of the groups, she found the most logical locations to place these initial monitors. Assuming they prove to be an effective means of communication, more screens will be added throughout the campus. Although the television monitors and e2Campus are not connected, the motive behind them obviously is. "Communication in general is always a concern for students," Corsello said. "We're trying to make the campus as safe as possible." In addition to being more convenient than other methods of communication-although email, radio and television announcements will still be utilized-e2Campus and the television monitors can alert people as an emergency is occurring. For example, if the campus were ever under a lock-down, all students, faculty and staff would be alerted of this immediately. However, in order for e2Campus to really be useful to UMPI, people need to sign up for it. At last count, the dean said there was only about 250 people have registered to receive these personal alerts. An emergency message system is "only as good as the participants." "We'll give it a year and see how it works," Corsello said. In that year time, university students, faculty and staff, consider taking part in the system that is designed to protect you. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|