Mobile Campus allows administrators and other qualified and approved groups on campus to send group SMS (Short Message Service) messages via the one device that students, faculty and employees carry with them at all times, their cell phones. The rapidly deployable system, which is provided at no cost or IT burden to universities, is already being successfully used as an emergency alert system. For example, the University of Texas, University of Florida, University of Central Florida, Kent State University, and Clemson University have all used Mobile Campus to notify students of school closures due to weather emergencies.
“Mobile Campus is an excellent communications tool for our emergency notification system,” said Rhonda Weldon, director of communications at the University of Texas. “We know most students carry their cell phones with them and the simultaneous text message alert has been very effective for sending campus closure messages. We have integrated Mobile Campus into all of our emergency preparedness plans and will continue to use it along with many other tools for crisis communications.”
Mobile Campus offers its service free of charge to all students and university employees at every campus on which it operates. While the system can be used for a variety of important communications and notifications, including promotional offers, Mobile Campus has decided, in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, to make the service available to students and others who want to opt into the system only for emergency alerts.
“The Virginia Tech tragedy, in all its horror, points out the need for a system such as Mobile Campus - not just in the case of extreme tragedy such as this, or extreme forces of nature such as a hurricanes, but for the myriad other issues in modern life that require rapid communication,” said George Tingo, president and CEO of Mobile Campus. “There are many circumstances in which rapid communication can save lives, from weather-related incidents, to terrorist attacks, riots, police actions, rape, robbery and fire. If a school can save one life or avoid one serious injury or trauma by deploying a system like ours, it should do so.”