Last Thursday at 11:52 a.m., Vice President of Administration and Chief Risk Officer Walter Hunter stood outside his University Hall office and watched students across the Main Green reach into their pockets and pull out their cell phones. Hunter had sent them a message.
Just before noon, 7,000 Brown students and faculty received Hunter's text, reminding them about the test of the emergency alert system siren, though Hunter said the mass text messaging was meant to test the message system more than to alert students of the siren.
Though he said the University had given students and faculty "plenty of advanced notice," about the siren, they wanted to test the speed and effectiveness of the MIR3, Inc. e-mail, text, voice and fax alert system.
Hunter and a colleague received the texts four minutes after activating the system.
Over 3,500 students, or 60 percent of undergraduates, provided their cell phone numbers to the University earlier this year. The first request the University sent out asked students to mark one of three choices indicating whether they would provide their numbers, declined to give them or did not have a cell phone.
Graduate students, medical students, faculty and staff were also included, though fewer graduate and medical students provided their numbers, Hunter said.
But even if the University could contact only one-third of the student body, the word would spread rapidly, Hunter said.
The text message system will not be used for spamming but only for "important, time-sensitive matters or essential systems tests," he said.
Some instances include "crime alerts where the situation is active" and major impending weather events, Hunter said. As far as weather is concerned, something at the level of a snow storm would not warrant a text message, but rather an e-mail, while a tornado would warrant use of the siren.
Text messages would be employed more frequently than the siren but much less frequently than e-mail alerts, Hunter said.
Though some students may hesitate to give their numbers for privacy reasons, Hunter said the University would not "be releasing these cell phone numbers to anybody unless for an official purpose."
After the system test last Thursday, the University sent out another e-mail to all students who had not provided their numbers urging them to do so, Hunter said.
The e-mail, which reported the success of the emergency notification system's text messaging component, then informed students they had missed out. "The system did not send a text message to you, however, because we have no record on the system of you having a cell phone," the e-mail read.
Jentina Mitchell '11 got the reminder in her inbox yesterday.
"I hadn't given them my number, so last night I got an angry e-mail saying, 'Give us your numbers,'" Mitchell said. Though she said the e-mail was "weird," she added that "it does make sense for the University to do the text message alerts."
She will be giving them her cell phone number now, she said, because before she "just never got around to it."
"If they used it only for emergencies, and rarely, then it would be more useful than annoying," Mitchell said.
Danielle Desbordes '11 agreed. "I don't think they would use it for any other reason other than warning us of something happening, and I would rather know than not know," she said.
Desbordes said she gave her number to the University the first time they asked for it.
"It didn't seem like a big deal to me because they were only going to use it for emergency purposes, and I don't have a campus landline, so how else are they going to contact me?" she said.
Though Chantel Taylor '10 said she didn't remember giving the University her number, she appreciated receiving the text on Thursday.
"I definitely think it could be useful just because I always feel like I'm disconnected," Taylor said.
The text messages could be used for situations like the April, 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and "weather emergencies and anything that needs our immediate attention," she said. And even if other students didn't sign up to receive them, others could just forward the texts, she said.
"I think it's a good idea as long as they don't start spamming," Taylor said.
