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Colleges Turn to Text-Messaging for Emergencies

By Kai Beasley
Black College Wire

Photos by Irving Johnson III/Xavier University Xavier University has a new e2 Campus text messaging system that is to immediately send critical information to the entire Xavier community when needed, via personal cell phones or other mobile devices.

With a wary eye toward the shootings at Virginia Tech, students and administrators at some of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities are looking to the latest technology, from global positioning satellite technology (GPS) tracking to text messaging, to make campuses safer.

“It’s really about staying ahead of the curve,” said Mable Scott, associate vice president for development and university relations at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. “It’s not an exact science. We just hope and pray that everything in our protocols will help us to be able to communicate with our students better in emergency situations.”

Virginia Tech officials had sent out e-mail alerts during the shooting rampage that killed more than 30 people on its campus, as the Chronicle of Higher Education reported. "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 services are built around the ubiquitous cellphone," the Chronicle said.

A&T adopted a notification system that utilizes the campus Web site, campus e-mails and listserves, the campus radio station and Aggie Net, a system of television screens that display current information on emergencies throughout the campus.

Reuben Battley, left, Gabrielle Jackson and Julius Tonzel check the validation codes to confirm their participation in Xavier's e2 Campus text messaging system.

For many schools, the primary system of notification is the Internet. Students are alerted to emergency situations via campus e-mail. But black college students and officials say the majority of them don’t use their campus e-mail addresses.

“If something like that were to happen here, we wouldn’t be prepared,” said Brett Boles, a junior business administration major at Florida A&M University, in Tallahassee. “Messages just aren’t relayed in time for people to react.”

“At my school, the campus e-mail is just too much of a hassle to use,” Boles said. “You have to register for a new password to get into your e-mail every few months or so and it’s too much. Off-campus e-mail addresses are just easier to deal with.”

Boles cited the unreliable nature of the school’s Internet service as a serious deterrent to campus e-mail use, making it an erratic method for reaching students when there is a crisis.

The problem is not limited to FAMU. Scott and Korell Pierson, a junior history major at Morgan State University in Baltimore, say the untrustworthiness of campus servers also poses a problem at their institutions. Officials at all three schools said they were working to remedy the shortcoming.

Pierson also took issue with on-campus security. “A lot of the cops are sociable with the students. A lot of them take classes here so they only care about giving the occasional ticket every once in awhile and not much else,” said Pierson. “There also aren’t enough of them on campus. For a concert, you’ll only have like five police officers to cover the whole thing.”

Many black colleges appear to believe that new technology offers the most efficient and cost-effective means of improving security.

The e2 notification system, now in use by schools such as FAMU, Maryland's Bowie State University, Xavier University in New Orleans and Coppin State University, also in Maryland, is Internet-based and automatically sends emergency notification to students through their e-mails, cellular phones and PDAs. This comes at a cost of about $1 per student annually and requires each student to register his or her contact information with the university.

Xavier began using the system in March. School officials report that more than 1,200 of the 3,600 students and faculty members are registered.

One of the more innovative products on the market comes from Zylaya Inc. of Gaithersburg, Md.

The Zylaya system combines the features of emergency notification with emergency tracking via GPS. Zylaya takes emergency notification to the next level. The system uses text messaging, global positioning key chains, personal and public display devices and wireless sensors distributed throughout campus to communicate information to students and security teams on the ground. Zylaya’s product also diminishes outside threats to campuses by giving school officials the option of identifying and tracking students and visitors via GPS.

“We can provide safety groups with information about what is happening and where it’s happening,” said Beth Wingerd, vice president of marketing at Zylaya.

The week of the Virginia Tech shootings, in which student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 others, and then himself, "there was definitely a higher sense of emergency. Colleges are wondering how they can make sure to get the messages out to the people that need to get them,” Wingerd said.

Packages cost from $25,000 to $250,000, depending on the elements of the package, and the price would probably add about $100 per student per year.

Zylaya has not closed any deals with historically black colleges, but Wingerd said the company was in talks with a number of them.

New technologies and increased police presence are important parts of the security puzzle, but some see the unique nature of black college campuses and their student bodies as playing a major role in college safety

Mortimer Neufville, executive vice president at the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and former provost at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, said, “I have found the situation at black colleges to be somewhat different. The environment is somewhat more intimate and students are usually far more conscious of their surroundings. The relative size of most campuses also facilitates closer observation of unusual and destructive behavior. Students may also be quicker to provide peer counseling or seek campus professional help.”

Greater interconnectedness and student awareness of their surroundings seems to be at the center of making black college campuses safer places.

Xavier credits Student Government Association President Crystal Moore with spearheading the move to e2 there.

A&T's Scott attributed the evolution of that university’s security protocols to student input; specifically with regard to the use of text messages. “Text messaging is what’s hot right now, and we have to pay attention to what’s hot so that we can find what really works,” she said.

“More than anything, the answer is the students,” Scott said. “Student involvement is important for security and finding what really works.”

Kai Beasley is a senior at Emory University who writes a weekly column for the Villanovan at Villanova University. To comment, e-mail [email protected]

Posted April 30, 2007