The Voice: CASE van in need of clarification

Just was is the CASE van, anyway?

This week's Page Four article touches on some details behind the service offered from Public Safety, yet it also shows a good deal of confusion among students – the type of confusion that has made the above question commonplace.

It's also a confusion that uncovers a bigger issue: any initiatives to improve safety should never be such a mystery to the campus community.

On the Department of Public Safety and Security's Web site, safety videos and information links are offered to explain the PirateAlert system and the SHUFLY.

Both these programs are relatively new at Seton Hall but seem to have a clear purpose, one that can be easily understood by a student after a bit of online research.

In contrast, the CASE van is nowhere to be found on the Web site. This flaw is a major one because the logical destination for students to find this type of safety information is online.

The only correspondence to explain the program has been via broadcast e-mail. That latest message, sent at the start of the month, didn't offer much help either.

It only explained the service as neither being "on-call" nor "available past a half-mile" radius of the university.

Obvious questions, including whether or not the van can pick you up elsewhere and bring you back to the university, still are left without a direct answer.

If other safety measures had followed this model, the campus could have incurred various problems.

For instance, if the procedures behind PirateAlert were not clearly posted and announced, many students would probably not subscribe. Similarly, had the SHUFLY schedule never made it to the internet, the shuttle buses could be empty more often than not.

Broadcast messages are never enough on their own, as too often students send these e-mails into Outlook Live's trash bin unread. All of the departments on campus should know this by now.

Public Safety seems to have a formula for spreading the word in alternative ways, whether it's through posters in campus buildings or messages on the University Center's electronic board.

But these methods always need to be detailed and informative; else, what will be the point for a student to take a moment and read it?

Keeping these facts in mind is crucial during situations when a campus department is trying to get information to the student body. Yet, it's never as imperative as when pertaining to safety.

October has already seen muggings and other instances which have led to the security of students being in the forefront of more people's minds than usual.

Thus, any confusion among students must be the call for Public Safety to clear up any obscurity regarding the CASE van and subsequently learn that a lack of information can be rather dangerous.