At 1 a.m., a student heading back to her dorm after a late-night study group skips the shuttle, opting for a cross-campus walk, sans company, instead.
On his way back to campus after a party, a muscular athlete with a fear-nothing image gets a little spooked and thinks someone may be following him.
A student, whose friends have already headed to another destination, has "one too many" at an urban bar 12 miles from campus and thinks she might pass out.
For most college students (and their institutional leaders, who not only care about their students but also don't want another "statistic" on record), a safe ending to the above stories would require a little luck.
Rave For Retention and Learning
With Rave programs being launched at 15 colleges and universities this fall, it's not surprising that the uses of the applications, which have customization options, are expanding.
At Allen University, an historically black institution in downtown Columbia, S.C., for instance, Rave applications are being deployed by Anthony Spearman, vice president of operations and a professor of physics. Besides improving safety, Spearman intends to use Guardian as an e-learning tool and to help increase retention. Here he answers some questions about the implementation:
University Business: In what ways will Rave Guardian be used to enhance student safety and security?
Spearman: Although Allen University has installed video security cameras in many sections of the campus, and has security patrols on a regular basis, these students routinely traverse uncontrolled areas. If the student feels unsafe at anytime they can activate Rave Guardian on their cell phone.
When a student arrives at Allen University this year, a Rave-enabled cell phone (e-learning device) will be provided and explained as part of the orientation process. Just like a student ID or room key, Rave will play a role in the normal transition to becoming a student.
The Rave Guardian feature allows a student a bit more comfort in some situations. Sometimes a student may have a security concern, but the concern is not intense enough to warrant calling 9-1-1. These are the times that Rave Guardian becomes critical.
In addition, Allen University is working with Rave Wireless to establish an on-demand distress feature. There may come a time when a student could be cornered and the perpetrator would demand that the student enter his or her code into the phone. [We have] proposed that Rave Wireless implement a feature such that if the code is entered backwards an immediate distress signal is transmitted. We hope to have this feature available very soon.
[We'll also] conduct a series of operational tests over the coming weeks to insure all policies and performance factors are met. Security is a factor that the operations staff at Allen University takes very seriously. This is not a component of our operations in which we can have errors.
University Business: How do you expect that Rave will help to increase retention?
Spearman: Rave will help address three main retention drivers: academic performance and engagement, strength of community bonds, and recruiting.
Academic: If the student does poorly in too many courses, he or she may not be allowed to return based on academic performance alone. We must address this concept first and foremost. [We believe] that providing a student with greater access to information will assist in the educational process. In addition poor academic performance adversely affects financial aid and scholarships available to students. This adverse effect results in financial strain on the student. Making our online course management information available to students via Rave during any hour of the day at any location is important to improving student performance.
Community: College is about more than just pedagogical undertakings. It is also about building relationships and growing into a responsible adult. Since Allen University is providing these cell phones to both students and faculty, we hope to create a sense of community with the phones. Students should be able to contact their advisors, instructors, and peers. Allen University is placing a strong focus on student advising. We pride ourselves on a culture of acceptance and involvement. Our motto states, "We teach the mind to think, the hands to work, and the heart to love." By reaching out to young people who traditionally have not had the opportunity to excel, we can mentor and instruct these young people into productive, responsible leaders of tomorrow. Rave-enabled cell phones can facilitate this sense of community with the call and learning group features that come with the system. Allen University believes the increased sense of community Rave creates will bolster our retention.
Recruiting: The entire e-learning phone concept will enhance recruiting. Allen University is already seeing an increase in average GPA and standardized test scores in this summer's cohort. To be fair this is in many ways associated with a NNSA grant for math and science, but we also believe the e-learning concept with the phones adds fuel to that fire. These increased scores suggest that the students will perform better at the university and that returns us to the other conditions that are associated with retention.
At Montclair State University (N.J.) (www.montclair.edu), global positioning system tracking technology is providing some additional peace of mind.
It all begins with a cellphone. A student feeling unsafe can simply activate a time on his or her GPS-enabled phone, setting the timer at anywhere from five to 70 minutes. That's the time the student thinks it will take to get out of the potentially unsafe situation.
The student is alerted when time is nearly up. Unless the timer is deactivated by then, the campus safety department officers will be signaled to investigate. Best of all, they know exactly where to go.
The tool, called Rave Guardian, is one of a suite of mobile phone applications for college students from provider Rave Wireless (www.ravewireless.com) that are being used by Montclair State and other institutions. Montclair is the first to pilot Rave Guardian, with a trial that began in the spring 2006 semester and a full rollout for its 2,148 freshman set for the 2006-07 school year. About 900 sophomores and 400 upper-class students who have voluntarily subscribed will also have access to the program.
Mobile Trend Prompts Program
The implementation of Guardian and other Rave applications started with an observation by Montclair State administrators that's backed up by Rave and other research: One almost sure thing about college students today is that one can find them walking around with cellphones. One national 2005 Student Monitor study found that 90 percent of U.S. college students are using them.
"The cellphone had clearly become the critical mechanism in terms of their relationship to the world as they were pursuing their studies as university students," says Susan Cole, president of Montclair State since 1998. "Young people regard e-mail as an obsolete technology that they only use to talk to old people. It's an astonishing fact. They've moved on, and we're trying this time not to follow but to get ahead." In fact, she believes that offering the Rave applications did mean the university had gotten ahead of the curve, even if it was only "for one second in time."
The cellphone, adds Ed Chapel, associate vice president for Information Technology, is "the single best tool for bringing information to our students in a push sort of way" because it's a tool they're using naturally.
Safety First
Montclair State's campus profile and its administrators' philosophy about having an open campus made the institution an ideal place to give Rave Guardian a try.
With about 12,000 undergraduates (about 3,100-3,200 of whom live on campus), the school's aim is to have porous boundaries between it and the surrounding residential community. "We don't want walls between the university and the community," Cole says.
It's located just 12 miles from midtown Manhattan, with the city's skyline visible from campus ("Our students stood and watched the Towers come down" on 9/11, Cole shares). With a train station within walking distance, that's a major draw to students, who find themselves in the Big Apple all the time. "New York is part of our campus," Cole says.
Yet, as Karen Pennington, vice president for student development and campus life, says of the 200-acre official campus, "The place never stops." With 24-hour shuttle service, a 24-hour diner, and a 24-hour computer lab, seeing students walking around at any time of day or night would not be uncommon.
