University to send campus closings and emergency info to cell phones of students, faculty & staff
LEESBURG, VA --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- April 10, 2007 – Omnilert, LLC, maker of a mass notification system for higher education called e2Campus, today announced that the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz has purchased e2Campus. SUNY New Paltz will use the Web-based service to instantly push urgent news and public safety information to the cell phones of students, faculty and staff whether recipients are in class, on campus, or going about their day off campus. Recipients do not need special software or hardware to receive the alerts. Recipients with an existing cell phone or email account simply register online to receive the alerts.
Rachel Reuben, Director of Web Communication & Strategic Projects at SUNY New Paltz said, “In order to communicate a delay or cancellation on campus due to weather or any other kind of emergency situation, we currently update at least two different Web sites, contact a dozen regional media outlets, update our on-campus information line, contact our switchboard operators and Welcome Center greeters, and send e-mails to the appropriate lists. However, no matter how much outreach we attempt, we still find we get occasional calls from students that say they didn't know or hear that we delayed or canceled classes.”
“We realized it was time to look into other solutions - and that's when we found e2Campus. We have heavy cell phone, and especially text-messaging, use on our campus, and realized that's the perfect way to reach our students, faculty and staff. When we learned that e2Campus has other features that will reduce the time we spend on our current procedures for notifications, we were sold.”
