While UTPD and students agree sending alerts through text messaging is the quickest way to reach the UT community, opinions differ on when it should be used.
With the September shooting of a UT student off campus and the bomb threat at Stranahan Hall two weeks ago, questions are arising over the use of the UT Alert system.
The program, formerly called RED ALERT, is designed for use in scenarios such as violent episodes, chemical releases and certain weather emergencies, said UT Police Chief Jeff Newton.
"Any situation where there's an imminent threat to the safety of the campus community," he said.
UTPD did not have enough time and information to warrant a text message alert about the shooting in September, Newton said.
"Ideally … it would have been great if we could've sent one out when the student was shot just off campus," he said. "However, we just were not able to get the information in a timely enough manner … to have an effective alert go out."
The use of a text alert for the bomb threat was avoided in order to prevent "copy-cats" and panic among students and faculty at UT, Newton said.
"If we would have found a device … that would have changed things … then we would have certainly sent out an alert saying, 'Hey we received a bomb threat. We've found something suspicious. We're closing this whole section of campus off,'" he said.
Elizabeth Krancevic, a senior majoring in Spanish, understands why UT didn't send out a text alert for the bomb threat.
"They didn't tell us about it because people could blow it out of proportion," she said. "They're going to tell us if we really need to know."
Some students disagree. Ashley Drellishak, a senior majoring in psychology, said she would have liked to have been informed about the threat.
"I would want to know if there was a bomb on campus so I could get the hell out of there," she said.
Last winter's closing of the UT campus due to weather conditions is the most recent time the UT Alert system was used, Newton said.
"We have students who are commuting, sometimes from long distances, and I think that does represent a pretty serious threat if you're on the road," he said.
Krancevic said she was thankful to receive the message after she woke up that day. Although the message averted unsafe conditions for some students, Drellishak said she didn't receive the alert.
"I don't think I've ever gotten a text," she said. "I signed up for it last year."
The UT Alert system, which has been in effect since August 2007, uses a program called e2campus, provided by Omnilert, said Gary Jankowski, associate vice president of safety and health.
Omnilert is a communication network that delivers messages through communication services like mobile phones, emails and Web pages.
Jankowski said UT has tested the system about three or four times, with about 12 to 15 people for each test.
"It is virtually instantaneous … the tests we've done are less than one minute," he said.
Although Newton said the system was used to alert students of a campus closure last winter, Jankowski said UT has not tested the system on students.
"We have not done [a test on] any students," he said. "We're still debating that. I think it's certainly a worthwhile thing to do, but our safety committee is still talking about it."
When students sign up for the system, they have to indicate which cell phone provider they use out of a list of about 45 companies, Jankowski said. After UT sends out an alert using the e2campus program, the message is relayed to cell phone providers and finally to the students' cell phones, he said.
"The e2campus people, they said, 'We can't guarantee that one of the smaller, regional cell phone carriers [won't] have a delay in getting the message to a student or employee that has a small cell phone carrier,'" he said.
If students choose the wrong carrier, it would not affect the messages' ability to reach the student, said Keith Bitter, team lead portal applications for IT personnel.
"[Omnilert has] agreements set up with all these providers and have developed a relationship, so they can actually route it in a way they believe would be the quickest," Bitter said.
UT has 10,944 students, faculty and employees who use the alert system, Newton said.
"Once we hit 'send' it only takes … no more than seven to 10 minutes to reach all the students," he said.
The e2campus program vendors told UT administrators the program has a good national reputation, Jankowski said.
"They have done tests in which they send out 18, 20, 30 thousand alerts at one time and they're all received within one minute," he said. "This is a good, robust program."
Other universities like Penn State also use Omnilert's services, Bitter said.
"Penn State uses it across their campuses, and they've received pretty good response times," Bitter said.
The program costs UT $1.53 per person, per year for unlimited alerts, Jankowski said.
"The university swallows all those costs as an enhancement to safety," he said. "The only charge to a student would be whatever your cell phone carrier charges for a text message. To me it's a pretty small price to pay for safety."
- Emil Whitis contributed to this report.
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