As part of an effort to better handle an emergency situation like the massacre at Virginia Tech last April, Tufts will roll out a rapid notification system called Send Word Now next week.
Students will receive an e-mail invitation next Wednesday to register their cell phone numbers and preferred e-mail addresses into a secure online database. In the case of an on-campus emergency, administrators will be able to "blast" a simultaneous and instant message to all students, faculty and staff that are registered.
"No one can ignore the fact that the confusion that happened that day at Virginia Tech centered on poor communication," Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said. "Send Word Now is designed to get information from students in case we need to use it in an emergency. I hope we don't."
According to Vice President for Information Technology Mely Tynan, this message could reach students simultaneously via any combination of land line, cell phone, SMS text message, Blackberry, e-mail and pager.
"Depending on the device, the student would receive voice or text instructions appropriate to the situation," she said in an e-mail.
The Send Word Now initiative stems from the work of the Crisis Communications Committee assembled by University President Lawrence Bacow following the shooting in Blacksburg, Va.
Headed by Vice President of University Relations Mary Jeka, the team was a collaborative effort featuring input from various departments on all of Tufts' campuses, including Public Safety, Public Relations and University Information Technology (UIT).
Director of Public and Environmental Safety John King said he hopes students will submit their contact information.
"[Virginia Tech] is still in the news so people will understand why we're doing this and they'll react favorably," he said. "I don't think we'll get 100 percent participation, but even if a handful of students in a classroom get notified, for all intents and purposes, everyone in that class has been reached."
According to Tynan, the university considered 11 rapid notification vendors before settling on Send Word Now. She said that Tufts chose Send Word Now because it is easy to use, compatible with text messages, and has the confidence of an array of corporate customers that include Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil and General Motors.
It also has several university customers, including New York University, the University of Delaware and, locally, Boston University.
BU has recently begun requiring students to register for it. Without signing up, students will be locked out of registration for the spring semester.
Two weeks into their semester, 50 percent of BU students have registered and the numbers are increasing daily, according to Stephen Morash, the university's emergency response planning manager.
"The feedback has been very positive," he said.
In a black-and-red pamphlet already dispersed in Dowling Hall and on other locations around campus, a message from Bacow asks that students respond to the Sept. 19 e-mail when they receive it.
"This is the only way you will be able to get in the system," Bacow wrote. "It is part of what keeps the system secure and your information confidential. Your emergency contact information will only be used to contact you during a crisis or emergency."
Tynan echoed Bacow's statement that the system is secure.
"UIT places a high priority on the security and privacy of data for which we are the custodians," Tynan said. "The information students enter into Send Word Now will not be used for any other system or for any reason other than to notify them of an emergency or crisis situation."
Send Word Now's rapid notification system is only one piece of a larger campus security initiative, according to King, who said that the university is in the process of looking into updating its blue-light phones.
Tufts already has 71 of these phones on the Medford/Somerville campus and the upgraded phones could feature built-in speakers to sound an alert in the case of an emergency.
"We're expecting a demo from the manufacturer of the phones," King said, noting that the company is in the testing phases of the speaker design. "It is an area of interest for us and we're hoping the cost wouldn't be prohibitive. It is on our radar screen."
King's department has also been working on an Emergency Response Guide (ERG), which has an expected online launch date of sometime next week. The guide will include directions for the community to use in a wide variety of emergency situations.
King said that the work on the ERG has been a year in the making, preceding the incident at Virginia Tech, but that an "active shooter piece" was added in the aftermath of Virginia Tech.
This will fill in a hole in university protocols, since according to Reitman, there had previously been no strategy in place for how to deal with an on-campus shooter.
While the online version of the guide will come first, King said that plans are in place to release a print version that would dovetail as a calendar by January.
"If we printed just a paper version of the ERG, it might end up in a drawer or the trash, but people are more likely to retain and use a calendar," he said.
