IN THE WAKE of last year’s Virginia Tech shootings, colleges around the country searched for a way to make their campuses safer — a search made even more urgent by the Feb. 14 shootings at Northern Illinois University.

The University of Illinois has found one way to make its students and faculty more secure: texting.

If there is any kind of life-threatening emergency or danger on campus, every student, faculty, or staff member — including those at Uni High — who registered for the service will receive a text message and/or an e-mail telling them to stay away from that part of campus.

That is the main idea behind the U of I’s new emergency notification system, which includes options for receiving both text messages and e-mails.

Previously thought of as a way for high school and college students to find out what a friend was doing without being noticed with a phone in class, texting is being revolutionized by the emergency text message service. Using this system, texting could save lives.

“Different people like to be notified different ways, so we try to have as many options as possible,” said Robin Kaler, U of I associate chancellor for public affairs, in an e-mail interview with the Gargoyle.

Apparently, a lot of people like the idea of the new system, because Kaler said that 45 percent of the U of I's more than 40,000 students have already registered their cell phones.

When students, faculty, and staff members log on to the system's Web site at emergency.illinois.edu, they will have the option of entering up to two text-mail addresses and three e-mail addresses.

It’s not clear, however, just how many Uni students have registered, because the people who sign up for the service are not categorized by which part of the U of I they are connected to, according to Michael Corn, U of I director of security services and information privacy.

What if you don't sign up? In a crisis situation, the U of I will send only an e-mail message to the address listed for you in the campus directory.

Corn points out that unlike traditional modes of texting, which involve both sending and receiving, the U of I emergency system is one-way only.

“The system isn’t a ‘texting’ system,” said Corn in an e-mail interview with the Gargoyle. “The system sends e-mail, and, if individuals provide them, text messages to cell phones.”

The system has yet to be used in a real-world emergency. To check for bugs, the U of I will occasionally run checks to make sure it is functioning properly.

According to Kaler and Assistant Principal Sue Kovacs, the reason for using this kind of notification as opposed to alarms and sirens is that it is quiet and therefore safer because whoever or whatever is endangering students will not know.

“Unlike Uni with bells and ways to communicate, most teaching halls do not have someone there to monitor or anyone to lock doors,” Kovacs said. “It is a quiet way to get to students … [The texting system] increases their safety.”

This highlights one of the major advantages of texting, which is its availability. As long as they have their cell phones, students would have access to emergency information anywhere, whether on or off campus, in a convenient way.

“This won’t prevent all bad things from happening, but it certainly could save lives,” Kaler said.

How to Register for the U of I Emergency Notification System

This service is available to Uni students, faculty, and staff because we share the campus, so for all of you who use or have texting, here is how to register:

• Go to emergency.illinois.edu (no https:// or www)
• Login using your Uni ID and password
• Enter your cell phone number with area code in the text message box (no spaces or dashes in between numbers), then click on the “Text Message Formats” box
• Add the ending that goes with your service provider to the end of your phone number (i.e. 5556666@vtext.com for Verizon members)
• Save the changes, and you are registered for the service!