Brown: Text messaging alert system increases safety
Improved communication with students may prevent future campus tragedy
By Jesse Brown (Contact)
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
When such tragic events happen on campuses elsewhere, I don’t believe it affects us as deeply because there is always that belief in the back of our minds that this can’t happen to us and on our campus. After the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the nation and other colleges certainly mourned for their loss, but yet, I feel as if this cannot happen to the campus here at the University of Kansas.
Recently, the University of Kansas has created a way to connect with students via cell phone by text messaging alerts that happen on campus. While there are no certain means for absolute safety and security, I believe it is a big step to ensure that safety and security and I applaud the University so that we could continue to study and attend class worry-free or worry-less.
When such tragic events take place in our nation, there is usually a common factor that helps in not preventing these atrocities: Miscommunication. On Sept. 11, while there are kooky conspiracies that the government was behind it all, miscommunication between our agencies hindered any preventive action or knowledge of the fore coming tragedy. We saw it all again at Virginia Tech as the shooter went from his dorm after killing a few students in the dorm rooms and ran through campus to only kill more at other buildings across the campus from his dormitory.
I am in no way blaming Virginia Tech for this tragedy, but you have to wonder, if Virginia Tech had this text messaging alerts for the students then, could more lives have been saved? Even if only one student feels the vibration of his phone in his pocket, sees the alert and informs the rest of the student body, many lives could be saved. I’m not speculating that if Virginia Tech did have these text messaging alerts that this event wouldn’t have been so catastrophic. It happened and that is that. However, I think it is a good thing that we, the University of Kansas, and other colleges are making strides to oppose these random acts of violence.
Really, that belief that it can’t happen to us, is not so prevalent these days. We live in a time of heightened fear and paranoia in this age of terrorism, and most of the time, this would cause panic, but communication can only help the situation.
However, it is not the belief, “It can’t happen to us,” that is tugging us at this moment but that if it did happen, we would be powerless anyway. I don’t really fret about it anymore because I have learned to accept that my fate could be decided at any moment, but yet, I felt a shift within me as I attended a class on Nov. 15. My pocket began to vibrate, so I pulled out my phone and I saw that I received a text message. I opened my phone and it said something like, “This is only a test,” from KU and at that moment I felt truly secure. I was beginning to think of situations, where if something did happen on campus, I would be aware of the incident quickly. I could avoid dangerous areas and walk the other way, away from danger.
While this is an age of terrorism, it is also an age of technology, and I see this text messaging alert system implementing our technological advantages as a way to prevent great atrocities and to only bring the students and faculty closer by communication.
Brown is a Lee’s Summit, Mo., junior in journalism.
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paranoia will destroy ya
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