A heightened alert

Boston University performed the year’s second test of the BU Emergency Alert Service by leaving voicemails, sending text messages and emails to students, faculty and staff across campus Monday morning.
The test came a day after a shooting at the University of Central Arkansas left two students dead and another shooting near Ball State University wounded two students, but BU officials had already planned the test and the timing was coincidental, BU Police Department Chief Thomas Robbins said.
‘It’s an unfortunate tragedy, but it highlights the need for the system that we have,’ he said. ‘The purpose behind the system is to get the word across an entire community, to as large a population of people as we can in the fastest manner that we can.’
BUPD tracks the system internally, and Robbins said the test was successful overall.’ ‘
‘By all means we feel that it was a success,’ he said. ‘We had the text message go out, and we were monitoring it, and the systems appeared to work as they intended.’
Send Word Now, the company that provides the alert service to BU, placed about 33,000 phone calls successfully, Send Word Now Senior Vice President Alissa Kaplan said.
‘The benefit of our service is the different modalities to notify students,’ Kaplan, a 2001 BU School of Law alumnus. ‘Those multiple modalities increases the likelihood that if an incident happens, and BU wants to put out a notice to students and faculty, they’ll be able to respond accordingly.’
In addition to sending information, SWN allows recipients to send word back, Kaplan said.
‘In the shooter on campus scenario, you could have ‘Push 1 if you’re okay. Push 2 if you need help,” Kaplan said. ‘The administrator has that information at his fingertips and can quickly identify the people who could need special assistance.”
The University of Central Arkansas does not use SWN, but the school has its own alert systems in place, Kaplan said.
BUPD used the alert system, which has now been in place for two years, earlier this semester when a suspicious package was found outside a bank in Kenmore Square on Sept. 2.
There was a mixed, if more muted reaction ,to the success of the alert system among students.
College of Arts and Sciences senior Amanda Mulhall said she only received an email, but not a text message or a voicemail.
‘I guess it’s still not working,’ she said. ‘It’s a good idea, but it would be helpful if they fixed it and it started working.’
CAS sophomore Kristy Pablo said she thinks BU does not need to test the system so often because it ‘wastes’ her text messages, but she feels comforted to have SWN in place.
‘It’s great that we have a way to do find out when things happen, especially with what happened this weekend at UCA,’ she said.
CAS senior Steve Czerniewski said he received all three notifications.
‘I got a call and a text within 30 seconds of each other,’ Czerniewski said. ‘Some people say it’s a little annoying, but you know what? If something actually did happen, it would be good to be contacted very quickly.’
Daily Free Press Staff Writers Lauren Finch and Lisa Merolla contributed reporting to this article.