The first test of Cornell's emergency notification system took place Wednesday, Nov. 7. Starting at 12:13 p.m., the university directed its emergency message vendor to send 2,723 voice messages and 15,238 short text messages to students, faculty and staff who had provided emergency contact numbers. A mass e-mailing also went to 50,916 student, faculty and staff e-mail addresses.

A small group of university staff members who have authority to activate the system gathered in the East Hill Office Building to launch the messages and observe progress as reported by the vendor. In an emergency, those authorized could create and send the messages from any location.

The voice message test exceeded expectations, delivering over 2,700 messages in just over 6 minutes, according to Richard McDaniel, vice president for risk management and public safety, but text messages and e-mails took longer than expected. "We are investigating issues related to the text messaging and the back-up e-mail system," McDaniel said.

He added: "We would like to thank all those who participated in the test. And we urge those who haven't updated their emergency contact information to do so at http://www.whoiam.cornell.edu." Those who received messages are invited to report the results on a short form at http://survey.cufa.cornell.edu/EmergencyNotificationSurvey.htm.