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University Puts GPS To Work For Safety

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By CHRIS NEWMARKER, The Associated Press

Published: December 4, 2007

MONTCLAIR, N.J. - It was after 1 a.m. on a Sunday when college freshman Amanda Phillips arrived at the train station. She was nervous about walking alone in the dark to her dorm at Montclair State University.

So Phillips activated a GPS tracking device on her school-issued cell phone that would instantly alert campus police to her whereabouts if she didn't turn it off in 20 minutes. After a five-minute walk, she safely reached her dorm room, locked the door behind her and turned off the timer.

"I think this is a great idea. It makes me feel a lot safer, and it's not even that expensive," said Phillips, an 18-year-old from Delaware.

Had she not turned the device off, an alarm would have sounded at the campus police station, and a computer screen would have displayed her location, along with her photo and other personal details.

Montclair is one of the first schools in the United States to use GPS tracking devices, which along with other security technology are increasingly being adopted on campuses in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre last spring.

Students can use the timer, or, in an emergency, activate the GPS technology to instantly alert police.

"Maybe they're hiding and are hurt. Maybe they wouldn't want to talk because they're hiding behind a desk and the gunman's in the room. They'd have a better chance of being located," campus police Sgt. Paul Giardino said.

So far, not many students are using the feature. The university, which has 13,000 undergraduates, said the timers get turned on only about five to 10 times a week.

In the little more than a year that the system has been operational, the alarms have gone off only about once a month, and it was a false alarm every time, usually because someone forgot to turn off a timer.

Karen Pennington, vice president for campus life, said she and others on campus wanted to use the phones for instruction - letting professors take instant polls in class, for instance - and for safety.

Although students praise the safety features, some grumble that the phones are mandatory and that they must be bought through the school for $210 a semester, on top of tuition and fees of more than $7,600 a year.

Montclair State said it is not making money on the deal. It said the total cost is about $2 million a year - almost exactly what the school collects from students to fund it.

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