Over the past couple of weeks, Sacred Heart University notified all students and employees that its new Emergency Notification System is online and ready to go.

Cell phone and landline information was collected from all incoming students during laptop rollout, and the remainder of the campus population has been urged to enter their information on a newly created WebAdvisor screen.  The phone numbers will be used by MessageOne’s AlertFind, a leading enterprise notification and crisis management suite.

AlertFind is one component of SHU’s updated emergency notification systems, and will enable Public Safety to send text messages to all registered users simultaneously.  Text-messaging uses SMS, a simple protocol for cell phone circuits that limits messages to about 140 characters.  Because it uses such a small amount of bandwidth, text messaging has been known to work in emergency situations when other voice and data systems (even voice systems on the same cell network) have been too congested to allow calls through.  AlertFind will call phones without SMS capability with a recorded voice message describing the nature of the emergency.  All classroom phones have been included in the calling registry, so faculty who are teaching will be interrupted in case of emergency.

Other components of the SHU Emergency Notification System include CATV interruption, fire alarm PA, and a SHU web site temporary redirect system:

• The CATV interruption system is similar to “emergency broadcast systems” previously used by television networks.  Every channel on campus, including on-network dorms, will display the same typed message and broadcast sound, typed and spoken from a central location on the campus.
• The Fire Alarms located throughout campus can be used by Public Safety as a public address system.  Announcements via this system will be audible throughout all indoor campus locations.
• The SHU web address will be redirected during times of emergency to display a specially-prepared emergency web page, with instructions and real-time updates.

“The idea is to have as many overlapping systems as possible,” said Saburo Usami, Director of Networking, Telecomm and IT Security.  He added that three more components are in the works and very near completion.

Jack Fernandez, Director of Public Safety, said that the first test is scheduled to take place just prior to the Thanksgiving Holiday.  He emphasized that the notification system would only be activated in situations that put the campus community in danger, from an active shooter to a large chemical spill.

“I don’t want to use this for things where people aren’t going to take it seriously,” Fernandez said. “If we start sending out text messages for things like snow, people won’t read it.  I want them to know when I send a text message, it’s real.”

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