Shootings. Tornadoes. Bomb threats. All of these are emergency situations that can and have happened on college campuses across the nation.

AggieAlert, the new campus emergency alert system, promises to inform users connected to A&T’s campus when such critical situations occur.

Chances are you have seen the posters around campus advertising the recently implemented campus alert system. AggieAlert allows registered users, including A&T students, faculty and staff to receive notification of emergency situations via text message alerts on mobile devices such as cell phones. The service is free of charge and is voluntary. Everyone on A&T’s campus is strongly encouraged to register.

The system has been met with much praise.”If you have a system where you can actually send a text message saying there is an emergency; please respond this way, I think you cut down on a lot of time. In a crisis situation, time is of the essence,” said Sherece Adams, University Residence Administrator of Aggie Village West.

Eric Wooten, senior mechanical engineering major, also feels that the service will be beneficial.

“We will know that if someone did a shooting on East campus, we need to stay in our rooms and lock our doors, or follow whatever policies and procedures needed to keep safe,” said Wooten.

The system has also been met with some questions.Although the service itself is free, users may be charged a nominal fee to receive SMS text messages based upon their wireless carrier provider and phone plan.

“I think that with text messaging, some people have it, and some people don’t. It is not free for everyone” said Wooten. At the present time AggieAlert is not mandatory. Some on A&T’s campus believe it should be.

“It would probably be a good idea for it to be mandatory just to keep everybody aware of what’s going on,” said Annie McPherson, freshman biology major.

AggieAlert brings back memories of past campus tragedies.”It’s sad, but it always takes something tragic or horrific for people to get a clue. The timing is reactive as opposed to proactive. It took something as tragic as the Virginia Tech situation for us to realize that we need to have some system where we can communicate with the entire campus in the event of an emergency,” said Adams.

Those interested in registering should log onto A&T’s homepage, click on the AggieAlert link, and follow the screens as directed.

A cell phone or mobile device as well as an A&T email username and password is required at time of registration.AggieAlert allows users to register up to two cell phones and two email addresses. Students may link a parent as one of their emergency contacts.

According to the website, the system has a zero spam policy which “prohibits unsolicited messages and AggieAlert does not sell the contact information for subscribers to third party marketers.”

The service is hosted by e2campus, a company that provides emergency communication services for more than 600 colleges and universities.

• Ashley Gilmer