Students Slow to Embrace Campus Text Alerts

You'd think today's mobile generation would be hip to receiving vital news via text message. So why are students slow to take up text messages carrying campus safety alerts?

If there’s one thing generally true of students today, it’s that they’re glued to their cell phones. Whether talking with friends and family, sending and receiving messages, or checking their social networking profiles, today’s youth rarely do anything without a mobile phone close at hand. However, comparatively few students are embracing what would seem to be a welcome and important mobile service: campus safety warnings issued via text messages.

According to OmniAlert, a company which runs an emergency alert system for campuses called e2Campus, the average enrollment among students and staff at more than 500 campuses that have adopted the system is just 39 percent. The Associated Press reports that a competing system, Connect-Ed from the NTI Group, reports that just 28 percent of users on the 300 campuses using its system have signed up for the service.

Campus security officials see the text-message based a alert systems as a key way to keep students safe in the event of an emergency or other threatening situation. Last year’s massacre at Virginia Tech—and five shootings at Northern Illinois University earlier this month—highlight the kinds of situations campus officials would like to avoid. However, the systems can also be used to alert students to more mundane but equally dangerous problems like gas leaks, fires, or other emergencies.

Some campuses have tried giveaways and other incentives to increase enrollment rates in alert programs, but so far have met with limited success. Both campus officials and students have cited a reluctance to give over personal information has a barrier to students and staff signing up for the services. Sometimes students balk at getting a cell phone plan that supports text messaging; sometimes schools pass along the alert service as an additional fee on student charges.

Security experts say campuses shouldn’t bet on text messaging alone to reach students and staff quickly in the event of an emergency: most recommend a multifaceted approach combining email, instant messages, old-fashioned loudspeakers, and (yes) even text messaging.