Campuses embrace emergency notification systems

Many colleges and universities across the USA are turning to emergency notification systems as one answer to the increasingly complex issue of campus safety and crisis communications. The best emergency notification systems are those that broadcast alerts using multiple communication channels thereby increasing the chance intended recipients will get the message.

Students prefer to receive an alert on a cell phone as a text message, while a professor may need to hear an alert over the internal PA system. Staff members at home or the office may prefer to get a phone call, while visitors walking around campus need to either see an alert on a digital sign or hear an alert from a rooftop-mounted loudspeaker.

Additionally, the e2Campus notification system has a feature called SEED that can automatically include every single school email address in the alert, so students can get the alert even if they have not signed up for text message alerts. For students who have not opted-in to the system, they may also see the alert on a digital sign or hear the alert over the loudspeaker or PA system.

Just two weeks ago, the e2Campus emergency notification system helped nab a wanted suspect at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. The university issued mass text messages to students that it was going into lockdown and to look out for a named suspect. Armed with this information, students spotted the wanted individual and called police with his exact location.