A mass email from Rave Mobile Safety was slated to be sent the first two weeks of the fall semester.If you deleted it, there will be continuing opportunities to sign up for this service. If you signed up for Rave and did not receive an alert please contact Archie Graham, Director of Student Life.

According to Kathleen Hohl, Director of Communications and Events, the Rave network “is very similar to EBS, the emergency broadcast system although thankfully without the monotone voice and piercing alarm sound.”

Students who would like to be notified of school closings, snowstorms, canceled night classes, lockdowns and other emergencie’s affecting the MATC community should sign up for Rave.

Hohl points out that Rave is not connected to Facebook or Twitter. Students choose how they would like to be contacted. It can be by school or personal email, a voice message on your cell or traditional phone and via text messages.

Students with disabilities would receive Rave alerts via their selected provider for notifications.

This new technology has already been added to the main web page in addition to the announcement page in some of the online courses.

By clicking on these Rave tabs you are immediately brought to a sign-up screen. It is the student’s decision if they want to receive these emergency only alerts.

Hohl adds that it is a way to “communicate directly with students and we will be very judicious when we use it.” However, if the student decides to turn their phones off, “or the battery is dead” they will not receive a Rave alert. “If anything, it would appear as a missed call.”

New students are added to the system via their school email within 24 hours. When a student graduates or changes to a different higher education facility such as the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, they are removed from the Rave system.

Many other institutions across the nation have also installed the Rave Mobile Alert system.