UW-Stout tests e-mail system as emergency notifications tool
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 11:54 AM CST
MENOMONIE — A test of the University of Wisconsin-Stout e-mail system Thursday showed that it could be an effective tool in the event of a crisis on campus that required immediate notification of faculty, staff and students, officials said Friday.
Lisa Walter, UW-Stout chief of police, said the campus-wide test resulted in 2,023 people responding to a Web site set up for the emergency e-mail test. Almost 300 people responded in the first 20 minutes of the test and more than 1,000 responded in the first hour.
“It shows people do have access to e-mail and are watching it,” Walter said.
UW-Stout has an e-Scholar program that provides a laptop computer for every undergraduate on campus, as well as wireless Internet and e-mail capability on most of campus. Furthermore, the use of computers and other technology is widespread on campus. The estimate of the total number of computers in use on campus is about 12,000.
Walter emphasized that in the event of an emergency, officials would use other means of communication to convey critical messages.
“This (e-mail message) is a good tool in the toolbox,” she said. “It shouldn’t be the only tool.”
For example, the university could use its building-specific public address system to convey emergency messages, she said. Other systems also are under review.
Walter said a questionnaire will be sent to the people who responded early in the test to assess their ability to spread an emergency message by asking where they were when they received the message and how many people they could have notified.
The test followed a forum on campus Wednesday at which Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen and other administrators discussed UW-Stout’s plans for handling an emergency and listened to questions and concerns about those plans. |
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