by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
Students, staff and faculty can sign up to get emergency text messages from UNM starting today.
The University announced a one-year, $17,000 agreement with Omnilert, a Washington, D.C., company that makes software for sending text messages to large numbers of people.
Paula Loendorf, director of ITS Communication Network Services, said text messaging is a good way to warn students about campus emergencies.
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"Whenever I'm around campus, I see students texting like crazy," she said. "It seems like everybody's communicating with text messages. I think it's a very viable way to reach the student body."
There will be a link on the UNM Web site to sign up using a NetID, first and last name and phone number.
Each person can enter two phone numbers and two e-mail addresses.
"That way, you can sign up your family or loved ones to keep them updated, too," Loendorf said.
The service can send alerts to cell phones, e-mail addresses and pagers.
The service can also send alerts to RSS feeds, so UNM's Web site can have alerts posted to it,
Loendorf said.
Before the agreement, UNM sent emergency alerts to University e-mail addresses.
At first, the service will be used for only emergencies, but it could be used for other things, she said.
"We could let students sign up to have messages sent to them about enrollment and financial aid deadlines," she said. "You could have messages sent to you during Lobo games telling you what the scores are. That's all up in the air, of course, but it's something we could think about."
Under the agreement, UNM can send unlimited text messages to 20,000 people.
Loendorf said she is not worried that the service will give students an excuse to check their cell phones
in class.
"Don't they do that already?" she said.
She said she started looking at text messaging services about eight months ago but had a hard time convincing UNM to sign up.
"I didn't get a lot of traction with it," she said. "Students are really attached to their cell phones. But a lot of older people, like me, don't really get it. I think a lot of administrators were not so sure about text messages. After Virginia Tech, I think everyone really wanted to do something proactive, and this was something that we could do easily."
Student Molly O'Meara said she doesn't see a use for the service.
"I don't really feel unsafe on campus, so I don't know that this is any improvement," she said. "Even with the e-mails, people didn't really take them seriously. I'm not sure it's worth the money."
Student Alicia Sanchez said the text messaging service makes her feel safer.
"It's reassuring to know that students will be able to get direct information from UNM without having to wait to check their e-mail," she said. "It's a
good investment."
