The College of Wooster’s emergency contact information policy is changing. This year, all “Ohio5 Schools” purchased the “ConnectED” emergency notification system. Dean of Students Kurt Holmes, along with the other deans, established this new system here at Wooster to better insure the safety of our school.
“ConnectED” allows students and staff members to be notified quickly by text messages and e-mails, along with voice contacts in the event of any emergency on campus. Holmes sent out an e-mail last Friday that alerted all students of the new system and instructed everyone to update their contact information via ScotWeb.
“ConnectED” will be used to notify students during emergency situations, warnings of an approaching threat or weather condition, and alerts about excessive burglary. “ConnectED” will also be used for updates on previous alerts.
In past years, Resident Assistants were responsible for alerting students of any substantial information that needed to be communicated quickly. Paper postings were also a quick way of communicating alerts and criminal happenings. With technology on the rise everywhere in the world, the College is working hard to keep up and communicate more quickly to make this campus a safer place. Holmes describes these changes as “moving up one more step forward.”
The software the College is using to alert students now is very new. “In the past decade, the College could have sent an all campus voicemail and/or e-mail by our own means. However, the technology did not exist to do so for off campus e-mail and cell [phone] service.” Holmes explained.
In the event of a criminal activity or severe weather condition, there are several people responsible for authorizing the notices that students receive: the Associate Vice President for College Relations, Holmes, the “on-call” dean’s staff member and in urgent cases, the security supervisor. “In most cases (such as weather) we want to take the extra five minutes to have a second person confirm with the security staff, but in the case like The Virginia Tech [Massacre], we would want an initial note to be sent absolutely as soon as possible.” said Holmes.
Update your emergency information by completing the following:
1. Link to the Wooster Web site http://www.wooster.edu
2. Click on “ScotWeb.”
3. Log in with your ID and Password.
4. Select “Students” and then select “Emergency Contact Information” under the Communications Heading.
5. Update your information and “Submit.”
6. Finally, select “Save Information” (or “Cancel and Return to Menu”) from the drop down menu and then “Submit.”