Franklin & Marshall College

The following message was sent via email to the College Community. You received a text message because you do not have an email account associated with your E2Campus Franklin & Marshall Emergency Alert account. You will continue to get emergency alert messages from the new Rave system, but you will be unable to update your account. If you would like to adjust your alert settings please create a new account at https://www.getrave.com/login/fandm

Dear Members of the Franklin & Marshall Community,

Franklin & Marshall's Emergency Alert System is an instant, mass notification system that enables students, parents, and members of the faculty and professional staff to receive updates and alerts on cell phones, hand held devices, email accounts, and personal web pages (Google, AOL, or Yahoo).

This service is part of our larger strategy to enhance communications during an emergency. Our goal is to increase safety on the Franklin & Marshall campus.

The College has used e2Campus (Omnilert, LLC) for Emergency Alert services since 2007. The service has been fine, but it remains an “opt-in” system and the cost continues to rise. The Department of Public Safety and Information Technology Services have been researching alternative solutions for the campus. We have decided to switch to Rave Mobile Alert when our contract expires with e2Campus at the end of June for the following reasons:

- Rave directly links to our employee and student database so that we can provide an "opt-out" service instead of our current "opt-in" service with e2Campus. That is, all enrolled students and active employees with an F&M NetID will be preloaded into the system and will have to request to not participate in the alert system.

- Rave offers enhanced phone messaging capabilities at no extra cost, as well as expanded alert options (3 mobile phone, 3 email addresses and 3 landlines per account)

- Others (first responders, neighbors, parents) can opt in to Rave in a similar fashion to what we have today.

- The fixed cost is less with Rave and we have received excellent references from schools that have switched to Rave.


What happens next?
Everyone who participates in our current system will be automatically moved over to the Rave system before the end of June. They will receive a welcome email from the new system and will not have to make any changes unless they want to add people and/or methods to receive messages.

Later this summer, all members of the Franklin and Marshall Community will be loaded into the system, initially with their @fandm.edu email address and their preferred phone number for text messages. As with current participants, everyone will receive a welcome message with instructions on how to add people and/or methods to receive messages.

Public Safety and ITS will be updating the Emergency Alert web pages found at http://www.fandm.edu/prepare to reflect these new improvements. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have and look for a welcome message from Wave Mobile Alert in the near future.

Mike Rossano, Director of Public Safety
Jon Enos, Chief Information Officer