Category: technology

Assessing Virginia Tech’s response and text messaging as a crisis communications tool

Karine Joly points to an Inside Higher Ed article evaluating Virginia Tech’s response to the massacre as it unfolded on Monday, April 16. The article covers some by-now-familiar ground and points to the emerging trend in getting the word out to the masses: text messaging.

[T]he one medium that the university could not take advantage of was also the one that most experts cited as being the most useful: text messages. While not a major component of most universities’ crisis strategies at the moment, the messages are beginning to take hold.

A lot of universities (ours included) have been talking about including text messaging as a means to get the word out to students and others during times of crisis. But so far it’s been mostly talk. One exception, according to the IHE article, is Montclair State University in New Jersey. There, students are required to have a cell phone and service that are compatible with the campus’ network. “We’ve made some deliberate decisions about it, and that is that we’ll only use it for emergency reasons,” said Karen Pennington, the vice president of student development and campus life.

UMR name change update

One reason for the light posting around here lately is because I’ve been busy working on a variety of projects pertaining to the upcoming name change of my employer, the University of Missouri-Rolla, to Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T for short). The University of Missouri Board of Curators approved the name change last Friday. The new name goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2008.

There is much work to do between now and then. A lot of rebranding, a lot of communication to a lot of people, and still a lot of blogging at our Name Change Conversations blog. I’ve been busy there, too, working to transform that site from a forum for discussion about the name change proposal to a forum to inform interested parties about how we’re going to implement the new name, and all that entails.

As a forum for discussing the name change proposal, the blog drew comments mainly from opponents. Does that mean the blog was unsuccessful? I think it was a mixed bag. I believe it was a success in a few ways: 1.) it gave alumni and students an “official” forum through which they could share their views, complaints and occasional expressions of support; 2.) it caused alumni, students and others to — in the words of one commenter — “think more about my alma mater than I have in a long time:; and 3.) the conversations that occurred there also won a couple of people over to the rationale for the name change. I wish more of the alumni and students who supported the name change would have taken advantage of the opportunity to share their views. But I also realize that the most vocal critics of any change will be the ones most likely to take advantage of an opportunity to make their voice heard. That’s the beauty of the blogosphere. Or one of the beauties, anyway.

I’ll try not to bore you all with lengthy posts about the trials associated with a name change. But understand that this undertaking will consume a lot of my time, energy and thinking in the coming months.