With the majority of students ignoring
administration pleas to sign up for the
emergency text-messaging system, school
officials are considering making participation
mandatory, said Pamela Lepley, director of
University News Services.
The text-messaging system is meant to be
the primary means of communication with
students, faculty and staff about life-threatening
emergencies and inclement weather. The
message system is free, although standard
text-message fees apply.
Only 12,200 out of the targeted 40,000
VCU community members have signed up for
the text-message system as of early October.
The system has been available since August
and was subject to a well-publicized test in
September.
“Students still are way behind (in the
sign-up process),” VCU Police Chief Willie
Fuller said. “We don’t understand that. It’s
free, and students in this day and age hardly
communicate without text messaging.”
Lepley said registering for the system could
become a requirement in order to log on to
eServices, the system through which students
sign up for classes.
Penn State University has been asking
students for their cell-phone numbers and
automatically registering the students for the
school’s text-messaging system. Lepley said
VCU will keep an eye on how registration
continues, although she is hoping other marketing
tactics will convince enough students
to register.
“The bottom line is we’re going to work
hard to get people signed up,” Lepley said.
“Making something mandatory is sort of a
last resort.”
Annemarie Mountz, manager of electronic
communications at Penn State University, said
although the university is asking students to
provide emergency contact information, they
are free to not include their cell-phone numbers,
since some students might not own cell
phones or have a text-messaging service.
“We would never penalize anyone by not
letting them sign up for classes just because
they don’t own a cell phone,” Mountz said.
Art Foundation sophomore Daniel Zeese
said requiring registration would be the only
reason he would sign up for the alerts.
“If it were mandatory for everyone, I’d be
fine with it,” Zeese said. “But just giving us the
option isn’t enough for me to start caring.”
Associate professor Jeff South, who teaches
a communications technology course and has
encouraged his students to sign up, said
forcing students to register would be the
least desirable option.
“I think we’ve become very cynical
about whether these security systems are
really going to do any good,” South said.
“To require students to do something
they should do themselves wouldn’t be
a good thing to do. It might even feed
the cynicism.”
Lepley said students feel insulated
from emergencies, such as the April
Virginia Tech shootings.
“Even though (the shooting was) scary
. and points out that it could happen
anywhere at any time . in the back of
our heads, we’re thinking it still is a very
rare thing,” she said. “There are some
emergencies that could happen that are
a lot more real and dangerous. It just
makes sense to be able to do this.”
Another test of the emergency communications
systems will take place in
the spring semester.
The text-message sign-up is available
at www.vcu.edu/alert/notify/.