The San Diego State University (SDSU) has launched a new free phone-based application to address and promote personal safety both on and off campus.
The SDSU Safe application – developed by AppArmor the university’s vendor for mass emergency notifications – is being introduced for SDSU and SDSU Imperial Valley. Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to download the mobile app, available in the stores for Apple and Android.
“The safety and security of our community and campus are paramount,” SDSU President Adela de la Torre said in a press statement. “In addition to enhancing safety-related workshops, training sessions, and events over the recent years – including improved policies related to student conduct – we have improved our mechanisms for communicating campus emergencies and resources to students, faculty, staff, and our parents and families.”
“AppArmor provides us with a leading-edge app to help provide easy access to critical campus alerts and new tools, like friend walk, to help assure the safety of our students,” said Jerry Sheehan, SDSU vice president for information technology and chief information officer.
SDSU Safe uses the latest mobile and GPS technologies, with enhanced features that include certain campus safety alerts as well as instant access to a range of university safety resources and reporting tools.
“In a public safety event it is critical that we quickly and simply communicate to our students, faculty, and staff ‘where they live,’ which is on their mobile devices,” said Sheehan.
The alerts via the application provide easy and instant access to useful information in a public safety event, including:
- users receive notifications and instructions in the event of emergencies occurring on or near campus;
- users can share their physical location with an individual via the ‘Friend Walk’ feature;
- the ‘Mobile Blue Light’ feature shares location information with the University Police Department so that they may respond to assist users in the event of a crisis on campus;
- real-time reporting tools for emergencies, crime tips, or incident information;
- the ‘SDSU Urgent’ feature directly connects to the university’s Urgent.sdsu.edu page, to keep the campus informed during emergency information; and
- maps and directions, including information about shuttle transportation.
