UTC communication lags: In emergency situations information moves slowly

While UTC officials may be improving the campus by building the Aquatic and Recreation Center, remodeling Grote Hall and starting to prepare for a new library, administrators should be more concerned with correcting the catastrophe that is the university's communication with its students.UTC has experienced two unexpected power outages and one bomb threat over the past month alone.

When the first power outage happened, classes were canceled; however, no one was aware of this critical information.

Students who live off campus had no way to know anything was out of the ordinary until they arrived because no information had been offered.

It was not until 8:30 a.m. - two hours after the power had first gone out - that an e-mail was sent saying classes were canceled until 10 a.m. due to campus still being without electricity.

If students lived on campus, it was about 30 minutes after the e-mail was sent before they had confirmation of what was going on around them - when a UTC alert text message was sent.

When the power goes out, an e-mail is not the best way to get information to students, especially those living on campus and affected by the outage. Relying on the battery power of laptops was not the most efficient way to inform students of the problem.

There must be a better way.

Two weeks ago, when a bomb threat was made on campus, e-mails and text messages were sent out notifying students which buildings were being evacuated, and which ones students were allowed to re-enter.

The problem was, students were receiving UTC alert texts about buildings being re-opened and classes resuming at 5 p.m. before they received one saying Brock and the UC had been evacuated.

While these messages may have been sent out in proper chronological order, the fact that they were received in various different forms of scrambled communication proves our emergency information system is greatly flawed and must be examined.

While the power outage and bomb threat turned out to be low on the severity spectrum, someday UTC may experience a genuine emergency, and when information is not properly administered, lives may be lost.

Even though it would be unimaginably tragic to lose fellow students, it would be even worse to know their deaths could have been prevented, since the information system had proven, on numerous occasions, to be faulty.

Whether the mix up of information is caused by human error and lack of judgment or a glitch in technology, someone needs to be held responsible, and the catastrophe must be rectified.

Solutions need to be developed, and e-mail is not the answer.

E-mail is good for low-priority events, such as letting people know the upcoming athletic schedule or about informative speakers two weeks in advance. But when there is an emergency, e-mail is not reliable enough.

As in the case a few weeks ago, there are power outages or problems with the internet going down. Checking e-mail is also not a common occurance for all students. Despite the stress put on making it the primary address, many students prefer Yahoo! or Google accounts with more space and more options when it comes to storing precious information.

Perhaps the text message alerts are the way to go, but unlike the e-mail, that route has not been stressed enough.

Many students are not signed up for the alert system, and avoid it because they do not want to hear useless information about the university.

The system is not, in fact, used for information spreading other than in emergency situations.

So maybe making the text message system mandatory would be useful for UTC and its students who need to know important emergency information.

Whatever the situation is, the problem needs to be addressed before it is too late.