GREENVILLE UNIVERSITY LAUNCHES LIVESAFE APP
Published: January 17, 2024
Author: T. Sunderland
The Campus Safety Office of Greenville University will roll out a new emergency and safety communications mobile app for the 2024 spring semester.
The intuitive LiveSafe mobile app by Vector Solutions enables employees, students, and staff to quickly submit information directly to campus safety, access important safety and security resources, and receive critical information from campus safety officials. LiveSafe provides a suite of self-service safety tools, allowing those within the campus community to contribute to the safety and security of the University.
The LiveSafe app allows users to share information, tips, repair requests, and safety concerns in real-time with the campus safety office around the clock. Users can submit audio, video, or photos to communicate their tips or concerns. Once a tip is submitted, users can even chat with the campus safety officer on duty. LiveSafe users can send tips anonymously or enable location sharing, allowing themselves to be located quicker and with faster response times.
Greenville University has a relationship with LiveSafe's developer, Vector Solutions, utilizing its risk management training programs. As perspectives on campus safety have evolved across the country, GU Campus Safety Director Shawn Foles began to look at the natural evolution of the current alert system. Foles says, "After looking around the market, we found in LiveSafe an app in which we could not only communicate with students better but also, for the first time since the creation of campus safety, utilize a system that provides two-way communication and allows students to submit tips and concerns directly to campus safety, even anonymously.
Other features of the LiveSafe app include a safety map feature in which students can see all campus buildings, parking lots, and AED locations. With the new "safe walk" feature, students input the address they are traveling to and whether they are walking or driving. Once the student has selected the location, they can choose someone in their contacts to monitor their trip. Safe Walk also allows them to notify campus safety and let the officer on duty monitor them in real time.
Through the user-friendly card-based home screen, users can call the residence life on-call number, campus health clinic, campus safety, or local law enforcement with a simple touch of a button.
In an emergency, campus safety can broadcast a message directly to phone, email, and text. Unlike GU's previous system, the LiveSafe app allows campus safety to send photos for additional information.
Director Foles is excited about the LiveSafe app. He states, "Our students' ability to securely and even anonymously report concerns and violations allows students to take a direct role in ensuring a safe and healthy environment to live and grow in on campus. I know from my time here that many of our students struggle with conflict resolution, fear being ostracized or targeted for ridicule if they report something, and don't want their names attached to reports. This new app allows campus safety to be better informed about every incident, from trash issues to the most serious issues on campus, through student input. For students, it allows them to voice their concerns and provide reports about behavior they see around them without concerns of their identity being revealed."
Parents of GU students and community members can download the free app. Public users can register and select the GU Community.
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Greenville University is an accredited Christian liberal arts university with more than 1,000 students, including traditional undergraduate, graduate, and adult degree completion students. Founded in 1892 and affiliated with the Free Methodist Church, the University is in Greenville, Ill., 45 miles east of St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, visit www.greenville.edu.
