Elizabeth Donald
Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat
EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. -- The new text alert system at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville went live last week, as professors reconsider a long-standing no-cell-phone policy in classes.
In the first two hours, more than 1,000 people had signed up for the text alert system that will send them an emergency message if there is an emergency, such as a school shooting or a natural disaster. As of lunchtime, 1,800 had signed up.
Some university students and faculty had received vaguely threatening e-mails over the previous system. SIUE police Capt. Tony Bennett said the e-mails were tracked to a spam server in Australia and have been blocked. “They were not a real threat,” he said.
One downside to the ‘e-lert’ system: most professors require students to turn off their cell phones when in class. In recent shootings at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech, most shooting victims were killed while in class.
Kay Covington, president of the Faculty Senate, said the faculty likely will discuss the cell phone issue at its next meeting. It is not a formal university policy, she said. “It’s just kind of evolved that way.”
Covington herself allows students to keep phones on vibrate. Primarily, a ringing phone is a distraction in class, she said. But with modern phones, texting and phone-cams allow students to cheat -- texting a friend for an answer, even taking pictures of the test.
"(Professors) sometimes don’t let students use the calculator on their phones for that reason,” she said.
After the shooting at NIU, however, students and faculty alike have a “heightened awareness” of safety, she said. Covington already has registered her phone -- but forgot to bring it to class. That might be a downside to another proposal: making students silence their phones, but asking professors to keep their phones on in case of an emergency.
Each professor sets his or her own policy, but Covington said the recent shootings may give some more perspective. “Even though one (shooting) was in Virginia, it’s still very close to home,” she said.
Dave McDonald, director of the university emergency management team, said SIUE also will continue its current systems to alert its 13,000 students, faculty and staff. That includes e-mail, auto-dialing all university and dorm phones, updating the university Web page and communicating with the press.
The university also has emergency storm sirens and speakers in the basements for severe weather alerts. McDonald said the university is considering using those speakers for other kinds of emergencies as well.
"(The text alerts) are just one tool in terms of getting the word out,” he said.
Only SIUE faculty, staff and students can opt into the alert system, McDonald said. Joining is free and no ads will be sent, though the university will test the system periodically. The SIUE community can opt in at www.siue.edu/e-lert.