Louisiana Campuses Sign on for Emergency Alerts
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 04/17/08
Omnilert, which sells the
e2Campus
emergency notification system, said it has sold its services to several Louisiana colleges and universities in recent months. The company also recently posted a discount pricing structure to the Louisiana state contract system, which allows schools in the contract system to purchase the service without going through a bid process.
The
University of New Orleans
,
Xavier University of Louisiana
,
Baton Rouge Community College
,
Delgado Community College
,
Dillard University
, and
Louisiana State University Health Science Center
have all signed up for the service, the company said in a statement.
"We are extremely pleased with the e2Campus service--from both a technology standpoint and a customer service standpoint," said Carol Gniady, Executive Director of Public Affairs and Information at Delgado Community College. "This is one more very efficient vehicle we can use to provide our students with proactive emergency communications."
In late March the notification system helped nab a student who had made threats against another at
Millersville University
in Pennsylvania. The university issued mass text messages to the campus community that it was going into lockdown and to look out for the suspect. Armed with this information, students spotted the wanted individual in the school library and called police with his location. One student was quoted on local news coverage as saying, "When they sent out his name, we went on Facebook to look up his name and when we saw the picture, two of the girls were like, 'I just saw him.'"
In early April,
Eastern Washington University
used e2Campus for a bomb threat in the campus library. Additionally, the school has sent alerts for various weather-related closings.
In February,
Ferrum College