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The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

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U offers options for emergency alerts

By Rochelle McConkie, News Editor

If Godzilla attacks Rice-Eccles Stadium, you’ll be the first to know8212;whether through text messaging, e-mail or a phone message.

Students and faculty can now sign up on their Campus Information System page to receive emergency notifications of situations such as snow closures, power outages, traffic jams or a campus shooting.

Instead of providing a one-size-fits-all option for emergency alerts, U administrators decided to give students and faculty the choice of how they would want to be notified.

“There’s not one thing that works for everyone,” said Fred Esplin, vice president for institutional advancement. “This creates a flexible system that allows for immediacy and to target particular geographic areas.”

The U’s emergency advisory council devised the new alert system this summer in an effort to create a more efficient and effective way to communicate across campus in case of an emergency.

The council is marketing the alert system through a series of advertisements featuring Godzilla on campus.

“We thought, we can make this really heavy, like “your life is at stake,’ but no8212;let’s make this fun,” said Les Chatelain, director of the center for emergency programs.

Chatelain said the council will encourage students to sign up for the alerts at events such as Redfest and health fairs, distributing postcards and sending out e-mails.

The council came out of the campus security task force that U President Michael Young created after the Virginia Tech shootings in April 2007, and now includes input from several areas of campus, including the Office of Student Affairs, Housing and Residential Education, the Associated Students of the University of Utah and Human Relations. A crisis communication class also invited administrators on the council to hear their recommendations on a possible alert system, developed as part of the course’s campus safety awareness campaign.

“When we have a terrible crisis like at Virginia Tech, it brings to our attention that maybe we should do something,” said Kay Harward, senior associate vice president for student affairs.

Through this voluntary system, once students and faculty decide how they want to be alerted, the U can send messages to specific areas of campus that are being affected by the emergency situation.

When students and faculty sign up for the notification service, they are asked to identify their primary and secondary locations on campus. These locations include the main campus, Fort Douglas/Heritage Commons, the U Medical Center, Research Park or the East and West Villages.

Individuals closest to the area of concern will be notified first. For example, if an emergency occurs near the Park Building, students and faculty who listed the main campus as their primary location would be notified first, not those in Research Park.

“By staggering like that, we won’t bog down the system,” Chatelain said.

When administrators were weighing options for emergency notifications last year, they were concerned that sending out text messages, e-mails or phone messages to the entire campus at once would cause phone lines and e-mail systems to crash or be extremely slow.

Chatelain said that by spreading out the resources, they avoid this problem, although there still may be some delay in notification.

The U has been testing the program, and in the case of an emergency, would be prepared to notify students and faculty.

Chatelain emphasized that the personal contact information supplied for the alert system would not be used for any other purposes.

Although the U uses the outside vendor Blackboard Connect to send the messages, the information will be protected.

Normal text messaging fees would apply.

The U will also spread emergency alerts through electronic bulletin boards across campus and broadcast messages on outdoor speakers, such as those at the Union Building and the football stadium.

Esplin said the video screens will be displayed in most buildings on campus with student and faculty traffic.

John Manning, a sophomore in architecture, said he would sign up for the text message alerts.

“That’s probably the thing I respond to the fastest,” Manning said. “If something were to pop up, I’d want to be notified.”

For more information on the campus alert system, visit www.campusalert.utah.edu.

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