New mobile alert system expands to Howard Community College

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Whether a tornado is ripping through campus, snow is halting traffic or a crazed gunman is on the loose, Howard Community College wants to be prepared.

Following the lead of colleges nationwide, the college’s new mobile alert system allows students and staff to receive instant notification of campus events through cell phone text messages, e-mail, pagers or desktop applications, college spokesman Randy Bengfort said.

“The technology has worked very well, and we’ve gotten a great response from both students and staff,” he said. “People have been getting the information in a timely manner.”

Messages, first sent out in January, have been about weather-related delays and closings. About 900 students and staff have signed up, and numbers are growing, Bengfort said. The service, called e2Campus, is offered through Omnilert LLC, a Virginia company that develops and markets the mass notification system.

Subscribing is free, but standard text message rates may apply.

Colleges that use e2Campus also use other means of relaying emergency information, including television and radio, but nothing approaches the immediacy of cell phones that people carry with them, Bengfort said.

Deadly shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University are recent reminders that colleges must spread emergency information to students quickly.

“They really encouraged us to sign up, especially after the Virginia Tech shooting,” said student Allison Bucca, a sophomore.

On April 16, 2007, a gunman opened fire at the Blacksburg, Va., campus and killed 32 people and then himself, making it the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

On Feb. 14, another gunman killed six, including himself, at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill.

The events have forced colleges to examine their notification systems. Now, more than 300 colleges and universities use e2Campus.

Anne Arundel Community College was the first campus in North America to implement the mass notification system in the fall of 2004, according to Omnilert.

Between 4,000 and 5,000 have now signed up, college spokeswoman Linda Schulte said.

“And we want more to sign up,” she added. “We continually market this to new students and want every single person to be able to be reached.”

jkowalkowski@baltimoreexaminer.com