Emergency Notification System Implemented
Connect-ED sends personalized voice, text messages to faculty, staff, students
Alma College has implemented a new campus emergency notification system
that gives College officials the ability to reach students, faculty and
staff with immediate, time-sensitive information during a campus
emergency.
During critical situations, Alma College officials will be able to
communicate pertinent information and provide details on appropriate
responses using voice messages to home, work and cell phones; text
messages to cell phones, PDAs and other text-based devices; written
messages to e-mail accounts; and messages to TTY/TDD receiving devices
for the hearing impaired.
“Colleges and universities today are forced to prepare for emergency
situations that years ago we never could have anticipated happening,”
says Jerry Scoby, vice president for finance and administration.
“We have spent considerable time over the last year updating and
testing our emergency plan and thinking strategically about how the
College should respond to weather-related emergencies as well as other
kinds of major crises.
“We recognize the important role that immediate communication plays in
safety and have selected Connect-ED, a notification system produced by
The NTI Group, because of its successful track record and capability to
reach campus community members simultaneously via landlines, cell
phone, e-mail and text messages. It allows us to keep students, faculty
and staff informed whether they are in their residence halls, sitting
in front of their computers, in class, or on their way to class,” he
says.
The service enables College officials to schedule, send and track
personalized messages to up to six phone numbers — including both
landlines and cell phones — two e-mail addresses and a mobile number
representing a text messaging service for every student and faculty and
staff member who agree to participate.
Existing contact information for faculty and staff has been loaded into
the system. Faculty and staff can update their contact information by
logging into the College Portal and scrolling down to the Emergency
Contact Information Channel (below the Announcements Channel) on the
Home Tab. Student contact information will be loaded into the system in
August.
“It’s crucial that we are able to notify students, faculty and staff
immediately in emergency situations because up-to-date communication
helps provide direction, restore order, and minimize the spread of
misinformation,” says Scoby.
Alma College joins more than 150 other colleges and universities that are using the Connect-ED emergency notification system.
The College also has installed emergency notification sirens on the
Dunning Memorial Chapel steeple and at Klenk Park on Charles Road. The
sirens will alert students, faculty and staff — including those on
athletic practice fields and those moving about on campus — of a
pending emergency.
For more information, click on “Frequently Asked Questions” about Connect-ED.
The College’s updated Emergency Response Plan,
finalized in January, provides guidelines for responding to most
potential campus emergencies. The plan identifies the crisis management
team, lists roles and responsibilities of campus administrators in the
event of an emergency, provides a framework for responding to major
crises, offers protocols for selected emergencies, and makes available
a campus wide communication tree.
Posted: Thu, July 24th, 2008 at 9:14AM
