WMU needs a text-message alert system for students

By Hasan Al Momani
Western Herald

Communication technology is now widespread throughout most of American academic institutions. Many American universities have implemented highly developed technological methods to insure the transference of information to students quickly, especially in the event of severe weather conditions and other emergency situations.

The wisdom behind using these technological devices is to help improve communication between the university and students in the event of a campus emergency.

Western Michigan University always implements the most recent technological communication methods. We can observe that by looking at our Web pages, in which we find the emergency alerts and advertisements that keep us updated with what is going on at the university.

However, our campus still needs to implement a quicker method of communicating with the students during an emergency or a crisis on campus.
One of these faster methods is to implement the text messaging alert system, which can make all students, faculty and staff connected with the university during an emergency situation.

We have faced a lot of extreme weather conditions in which our campus has closed. It is true that our university informs the students of the closure of campus on its Web site, but some students come to the university without knowing that it is closed, because they do not visit the Web site or watch the television before leaving for class.

Other emergencies are even more serious. We all watched what happened on other campuses like Virgina Tech where there was a shooting.
In a situation like this, the quickest communication method between the university and the students is highly needed to save the lives of students, faculty and staff.

Based on the above conditions, a text messaging alert system might be the quickest and the most convenient way of communicating. Text message alerts contain fewer words, which might save our lives and guide us to behave correctly and quickly during an emergency situation. Most of the students on campus are addicted to the “text messaging way.” Thus, this alert system would be favored by most of this generation.

Text messages can also reach all the students of the university at one time. Consequently, the students will be able to behave quickly during an emergency situation, especially, during the event of shooting on campus. Additionally, the text messaging alert system can enable the police department on campus to reach all the students at one time.

Our campus needs this alert system. This system will keep all students connected during an urgent time. This system can also be offered to students’ parents who are in need of being informed in the event of an emergency. However, to insure the implementation of this alert system effectively, we should bear in mind a lot of things.

First, the university should place an advertisement of the system on its Web site in order to urge students to sign up for the service. Second, all of the urgent messages of the campus should come from a definite number that should be known to all students.

Third, the service should be offered for free to all students, faculty, and staff in order to insure the connection between the university and all the students, and to encourage all students to register for the service. Fourth, the type of alerts should be identified for all the students of the university.

In other words, the students should know the urgent situations in which they will receive text-messaging alerts.

WMU should implement the text-messaging alert system in order to quickly inform us of what is going on, what to be aware of, and what to avoid. The system would make our campus one of the safest in the world.

Hassan Al-Momani, a Western Herald opinion columnist, is a graduate student majoring in English and can be reached via e-mail at hassan76us@yahoo.com.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=14467

Posted by heraldstaff on Feb 3 2010. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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