UMass Amherst Details Plans for Emergency Text-Messaging Service; Sign-ups Begin Today

April 8, 2008

Contact:

Ed Blaguszewski 413/545-0444

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst will launch an emergency text-messaging service for students, faculty and staff this spring. Members of the campus community can subscribe to the alert service beginning today by visiting www.umass.edu/campusalerts.

As part of UMass Amherst’s Campus Alerts system, the text-messaging service will transmit time-sensitive messages to subscribers’ cell phones about situations that pose an immediate risk to the safety of the community or could significantly disrupt campus activities. The cell phone numbers of subscribers will remain confidential and will be used only for emergency purposes. The campus plans to conduct an initial test of the system during the week of April 14. This test will assess if messages are received by all subscribers and how quickly the messages are transmitted.

Donald Robinson, director of the Emergency Operations Center, observed, “Text messaging will be a valuable addition to our emergency communications toolset. Especially for students, who spend time in many locations over the course of a day, notifying them by cell phone is the most immediate method available. We are very pleased to provide this service to the campus community.”

During a typical business day, UMass Amherst has more than 30,000 people on campus and administrators can use a variety of methods through its Campus Alerts system to notify people of an emergency. These measures feature technologies such as broadcast e-mail, Web site messages, fire alarms and an emergency-closing telephone hot line. In addition, messages can be sent to key personnel, who then personally spread the word to building occupants. The UMass Police, one of the largest police forces in western Massachusetts with 62 officers, are well trained in emergency response and are on duty around the clock.

After visiting www.umass.edu/campusalerts, students, faculty and staff will be directed to SPIRE, the campus’ online information and registration system, to sign up for emergency text messages. Logging into SPIRE requires an existing account with the Office of Information Technologies or SPIRE. Employees who do not have an OIT or SPIRE account should visit the OIT Help Desk (Room 109A of the Lederle Graduate Research Center) or the Learning Commons Service Desk in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library to sign up.

After people register for this service, they will receive a confirmation text message from the campus’ service provider, Connect-ED. In the event of a campus emergency, subscribers will receive a message labeled “Campus Alert” transmitted from “23177,” the address used by Connect-ED. Subscribing to the Campus Alerts’ text messaging service is free, but participants may be charged for individual text messages by their cell phone company, depending on their service plan. To ensure the prompt delivery of messages to the people directly affected by an incident on campus, only members of the campus community are eligible to receive the text messages.

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