Tusculum College taking part in new emergency notification/messaging service

Tusculum College is taking part in an emergency notification/group messaging service that will allow the college to share emergency information with faculty, staff and students via a mobile and online messaging service using phone, Short Message Service (SMS) and email portals on a relatively immediate and simultaneous basis.

The system Tusculum is using is offered by Jyngle, a Brevient Technologies LLC company. After the massacre at Virginia Tech earlier this year, Brevient began offering the service free to colleges and universities wishing to use it for emergency communication purposes.

Using the system, a college or university can send group notification via text messaging regarding emergency situations that might arise on a campus, including instruction to avoid the campus if the critical situation is ongoing.

On Thursday, a college-wide email from the director of campus security invited students, staff and faculty to register on-line to take part in the program free of charge.

The messaging option is part of an effort at Tusculum College to plan appropriate responses to potential critical or emergency situations that can happen on college campuses. Also being created at the college is a Critical Incident Response Team that will include Building Coordinators assigned to oversee response within their individual administrative buildings to critical situations that might arise on the campus.

These efforts are being overseen by Dr. David McMahan, vice president for student affairs and dean of students.

Other colleges or universities interested in learning more about the Jyngle service may visit the company’s web site at www.jyngle.com.