In case of emergency
Lamar adds notification system to reach students, faculty

Lamar University has contracted with Connect- ED, by the NTI Group, Inc., to provide a state-of-the-art, web-based emergency notification system.

The system will allow the university to contact faculty, staff and students quickly with news and information in the event of an emergency.

The Connect-ED system is capable of contacting individuals on cellular, home or office phones, PDAs, voice mail, and by text message, e-mail and TTY/TTD.

Through the Connect-ED system, Lamar University can contact thousands in minutes. The university administration began exploring ways to boost its ability to reach faculty, staff and students quickly following the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech in April.

"Lamar University is now implementing this new system, and because of the threat posed by Hurricane Dean earlier this week, we began contacting faculty, staff and students about updating their contact information to ensure we are importing the correct numbers and e-mail addresses into the system," said Kim Allen, director of the data, voice and video networking department at Lamar.

Presently, the Connect- ED system will call two phone numbers and send messages to two e-mail addresses from what is posted in the student and employee information systems, Allen said. While the Connect-Ed system itself is capable of contacting up to six phone numbers per individual, the campus system will not support more than two phone records, a limitation that will be expanded with the implementation of Lamar's new Banner system in future years.

University employees and students are encouraged to add an off-campus phone number, such as a cell number, to their records in the myLAMAR employee information and Web for Students areas.

Students may also add an off-campus email address. Faculty and staff will be able to add off-campus email after the Banner system is implemented, Allen said.

"The university will pull the employees' and students' on-campus email and phone as the first contacts, but in the event of a campus evacuation we would lose our ability to reach people without off-campus email addresses and cellular numbers," said Brian Sattler, director of public relations.

"A system that is able to reach students, faculty and staff on their cell phones and personal e-mail would have helped tremendously during the Hurricane Rita evacuation in 2005. That's why we're encouraging everyone to add those numbers and addresses to the system."

The Connect-ED system is not located on the campus, so it will be able to reach the university community even in the event of a campus evacuation. Campus procedures call for powering down all campus computer systems in the event of a campus evacuation, meaning all campus email systems will be unavailable.

Reaching faculty, staff and students who have evacuated necessitates having off-campus phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Adding the information is not required, Sattler said.

"It is not mandatory, but we certainly are encouraging everyone to add this information so we can provide better service in the future," he said.

Students are encouraged to verify their telephone and email information in myLAMAR.

This should be done in Web for Students in myLAMAR (SIS Online).

Connect-ED has been configured to send email to the first two email addresses provided (the first being the student's myLAMAR email). It will also send email to the second address field.

Faculty and staff can add cellular numbers by e-mailing the information to Beverly Haley at human resources.

More information on Connect-ED can be found on the web at www.ntigroup. com/products/higher ed.asp.