TCNJ implements text messaging system for campus emergency and closure notifications

The College has implemented a text- and voice-messaging emergency-alert system that will let students, faculty, and staff sign up to receive text messages during campus emergencies and inclement weather. The system will also provide voice-message alerts to additional telephone numbers in most instances when it is implemented.

The system will be used as one means of providing emergency alerts, timely warnings of criminal activity, and informing the community of major campus shutdowns, such as weather-related closings.

Students who wish to register for the system can do so online using TESS; staff and faculty can register online using YESS. There is no cost to sign up for the program. The only charges an individual might incur would be any fees their mobile service provider charges them for receiving text messages.

The service allows TCNJ to send messages to any device that can receive text messages (SMS) through cellular service, including many cellular telephones, text pagers, BlackBerrys, and some wireless PDAs.

For complete details and to register for the service, visit www.tcnj.edu/~ccr/critical/textalerts.html.

The messaging service will not be used for general college announcements—only issues presenting an ongoing threat to community safety or developments that significantly impact campus and require time-sensitive distribution of information.

When registering, individuals will be asked to provide TCNJ with the cellular telephone number where they would like text-message alerts sent. No advertising content or non-essential information will be sent using the text-messaging system.

For those without access to text messaging, the College will continue to distribute information through additional channels, such as mass e-mail, voicemail, and TCNJ Web pages.

An outside company, The NTI Group, will administer the system for the College. NJEDge, New Jersey’s Higher Education Network, solicited bids for its member institutions (of which TCNJ is one) from a number of mass-notification service providers. The College selected NTI because of the services it offered.