2008 Woodie Awards
Campus gets fired up with new campaign
Christin Pepple
Issue date: 6/13/07 Section: News
MTSU campus is sponsoring a campaign titled "Alert4You," that targets students to be more aware of the safety precautions and drills employed on campus in case of emergency.
"This has been cooking for the better part of a year due to the fact that no one really responds to fire alarms anymore," said Tom Tozer, director of news and public affairs.
"Our contention is that one day these alarms might not be a drill so we need to raise fire safety awareness on this campus for not only the students but the faculty as well," Tozer said.
The campaign will be year long and is being promoted in several different ways such as brightly colored signs posted all over campus bearing the logo, "Don't sit still, do the drill."
The campaign also took a direct approach in involving the incoming freshman at customs this summer by setting up a booth during the first session of customs.
On a comically ironic note, they handed out Fireball Jawbreakers to the freshman at customs.
"We wanted to plant seeds of awareness of this campaign and we figured, what better way than cultivating the newest members of our campus," Tozer said, "We are handing out key chains to students when they come to pick up their keys for their rooms and we are handing out magnets to the faculty to reinforce this idea."
Tozer stated that the Virginia Tech incident earlier this year was not the catalyst for raising awareness since they had been planning on hosting this campaign for a year, but it aided in helping people become more involved and more concerned about the growing apathy towards important drills used to educate everyone on the campus in the event of an actual emergency.
"Our office has really gotten more involved with this whole idea this year as far as internal public relations is concerned. We just want to make people aware of the problem and care enough to respond to the drills," Tozer said.
Tozer continued with stating that he wants the logo "Don't sit still, do the drill," to become an umbrella for all of the other emergency scenario drills to be taken seriously by the people on the campus such as Tornado drills.
"We will be on site at different events throughout the year such as the President's Picnic in the fall because we want to brand this idea into everyone because everyone needs to know that one day, this very well might not be a drill," Tozer said.
"This has been cooking for the better part of a year due to the fact that no one really responds to fire alarms anymore," said Tom Tozer, director of news and public affairs.
"Our contention is that one day these alarms might not be a drill so we need to raise fire safety awareness on this campus for not only the students but the faculty as well," Tozer said.
The campaign will be year long and is being promoted in several different ways such as brightly colored signs posted all over campus bearing the logo, "Don't sit still, do the drill."
The campaign also took a direct approach in involving the incoming freshman at customs this summer by setting up a booth during the first session of customs.
On a comically ironic note, they handed out Fireball Jawbreakers to the freshman at customs.
"We wanted to plant seeds of awareness of this campaign and we figured, what better way than cultivating the newest members of our campus," Tozer said, "We are handing out key chains to students when they come to pick up their keys for their rooms and we are handing out magnets to the faculty to reinforce this idea."
Tozer stated that the Virginia Tech incident earlier this year was not the catalyst for raising awareness since they had been planning on hosting this campaign for a year, but it aided in helping people become more involved and more concerned about the growing apathy towards important drills used to educate everyone on the campus in the event of an actual emergency.
"Our office has really gotten more involved with this whole idea this year as far as internal public relations is concerned. We just want to make people aware of the problem and care enough to respond to the drills," Tozer said.
Tozer continued with stating that he wants the logo "Don't sit still, do the drill," to become an umbrella for all of the other emergency scenario drills to be taken seriously by the people on the campus such as Tornado drills.
"We will be on site at different events throughout the year such as the President's Picnic in the fall because we want to brand this idea into everyone because everyone needs to know that one day, this very well might not be a drill," Tozer said.
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