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January 19, 2007 > Opinion > Students need quicker emergency e-mails

Students need quicker emergency e-mails

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

Wednesday morning, the highways were not the only slippery spots in Houston. As the city dealt with unusually low temperatures and commuters prepared to face dangerous road conditions, Rice’s Crisis Management Team took action of its own to ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff. (See story, Page 5.) The decision to delay classes that morning was not unreasonable, and largely

effective measures were taken to communicate the decision. But one measure left untaken could have greatly eased students’ responses to the action.

The Crisis Management Team did not send students direct e-mails alerting them of the state of affairs Wednesday morning. The team had to rely on recipients of the message sent to the ALLDEPTS listserv to forward the alert, which caused communications delays of up to three hours. Since students are much more likely to check their e-mail than their dorm voice mail when seeking updates like Wednesday’s closure, the Crisis Management Team should ensure it has a means of disseminating such e-mails more efficiently in the future.

We applaud the team for being on the ball and keeping the Rice community off the ice, but we hope we’ll hear about it sooner next time.

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