The University of Arizona Office of Public Safety released the school’s first safety app, SafeCats, at the start of the fall semester. The app combines all safety features into one user-friendly homepage, available for all UA students, employees, friends and family.
UAPD, alongside The University Information Technology Service and the Marketing & Communications team, spent the summer getting UAlert up and running, effective as of Aug. 18.
“In this world that we live in, information flows so quickly, and we wanted to make sure that our faculty, staff and most importantly our students had all the available resources right at their fingertips,” Steve Patterson, vice president and chief safety officer chair, said.
Previously, the university operated under both LiveSafe and UAlert. After research and planning, the UA identified Rave Mobile Safety, a Motorola-based company that provides tech safety solutions to higher education across the country such as Duke University and Princeton University.
The safety program will now operate under this single vendor to ensure smooth communication across campus.
“The goal of it was to ultimately have one vendor that handles the mass notification system, which we know to be UAlert,” Patterson said.
Patterson and his teams are working to promote the app as much as possible with filming and advertisements, tabling events, dorm visits and student employees training.
“When I first ran my sophomore year, safety was the number one concern that came up throughout my campaign,” Adriana Grijalva, ASUA president, said. “And, you know, following the shooting with Professor Meixner, soon I got involved with a lot of gun violence prevention work. So that’s how I met a lot of students that I worked with to talk about safety.”
Grijalva suggested during the development to add wellness support resources, like Counseling and Psych Services, survivor advocacy services and employee resources.
“I had a first look at the app before it was officially out. And so I got to actually look at features. One thing I recommended to Tamra and her team was to put student resources,” Grijalva said. “I was able to give direct feedback to the team, and I really appreciated them getting student input, looking at different areas.”
The app includes preceding safety features such as SafeRide and Mobile BlueLights, a portable version of the on-campus BlueLights. It also includes new features such as Friend Walk, Work Alone and Social Escape.
Friend Walk sends your location in real time to a trusted contact while you walk to your destination. Work Alone notifies your contact while working or studying alone if you are unresponsive. Lastly, Social Escape automatically calls your phone as a social distraction to exit dangerous situations.
“I definitely think that this app, for students, when they hear about it and the features that it has, students have downloaded it and […] students are really engaged and appreciate the features,” Grijalva said. “Safety has been a huge thing holistically on this campus that has been a concern, so I think this app really has brought that out.”
You can download SafeCats for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
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