2008 Woodie Awards
Skwl 2 txt msg u n e mergin c
Chris Crankshaw
Issue date: 9/17/07 Section: News
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The infamous Seung-Hui Cho gunned down his fellow classmates at Virginia Tech in what became one of the nation's most violent school attacks.
The students at VT had no knowledge that an armed murderer was at large on their campus even though the administration was aware.
According to the April 30th issue of Newsweek magazine's Special Report, Making of a Massacre, VT's President, Charles Steger, thought it would be better to leave the students where they were and not arouse panic.
Critics of Steger's actions that day believe the students should have been told the minute the school learned there was a problem.
Volunteer State Community College President, Dr. Warren Nichols, has initiated an emergency response to help prevent a similar situation from happening here. Vol State would like to text message students in the event of an emergency.
"The college was exploring ways to better communicate with students about general campus information," said Kenyatta Lovett, director of Public Relations at Vol State. "The Virginia Tech tragedy brought about new discussions on how best to reach students in the event of an emergency. Campus-wide text messaging can serve these two important needs in an efficient and cost-effective manner."
According to Lovett, this is how it will work. Students, faculty and staff will be asked to start an online account by providing their name, e-mail address and a cellular phone number.
Once an account has been set up they will get to choose if they want to be alerted by text message or by e-mail on their phones. The person signing up would also get to choose whether or not they wanted campus bulletins, notices and even Vol State sports updates sent to their phones as well.
Once a person signs up, they are put on a list. If disaster strikes, alerts would be sent out with information such as what to do in different situations. The College will also use the system for bad weather alerts. Scott says the mandatory emergency alert option would be used only if it was a real emergency.
The students at VT had no knowledge that an armed murderer was at large on their campus even though the administration was aware.
According to the April 30th issue of Newsweek magazine's Special Report, Making of a Massacre, VT's President, Charles Steger, thought it would be better to leave the students where they were and not arouse panic.
Critics of Steger's actions that day believe the students should have been told the minute the school learned there was a problem.
Volunteer State Community College President, Dr. Warren Nichols, has initiated an emergency response to help prevent a similar situation from happening here. Vol State would like to text message students in the event of an emergency.
"The college was exploring ways to better communicate with students about general campus information," said Kenyatta Lovett, director of Public Relations at Vol State. "The Virginia Tech tragedy brought about new discussions on how best to reach students in the event of an emergency. Campus-wide text messaging can serve these two important needs in an efficient and cost-effective manner."
According to Lovett, this is how it will work. Students, faculty and staff will be asked to start an online account by providing their name, e-mail address and a cellular phone number.
Once an account has been set up they will get to choose if they want to be alerted by text message or by e-mail on their phones. The person signing up would also get to choose whether or not they wanted campus bulletins, notices and even Vol State sports updates sent to their phones as well.
Once a person signs up, they are put on a list. If disaster strikes, alerts would be sent out with information such as what to do in different situations. The College will also use the system for bad weather alerts. Scott says the mandatory emergency alert option would be used only if it was a real emergency.
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