USG initiated text-messaging service out of Driscoll Student Center, in which students could utilize their mobile phones to receive information on upcoming campus events along with general questions about DU, was disabled only a week following its April 12 launch.

The University cited privacy issues as the motivation for holding the program.

“The registrar’s office bought this to my attention,” director of campus activities Carl Johnson said.

Initially, campus senator, Jon Mohr pursued the campus information inquiry technology at Penrose Library; however, was informed that the purpose of the library messaging system already in place was specifically for research and resource questions.

“Jon [Mohr] was thrilled to hear that there was a way to text questions to the library,” student outreach librarian Erin Meyer said. “He thought it would be great to take general campus questions to texting, but that would not correlate to [the library’s] mission.”

Thereafter, Mohr collaborated with John Nichols, the director of Driscoll.

“With the service, students could text message “duevents” to 66746 to get information about major campus events, like winter carnival or “duinfo” to ask DU-related questions,” he said. “While the cell phone numbers would be saved, they would have been used conservatively.”

Mohr explained that administrators were concerned with students’ information being stored in databases.

However, along with Penrose, already Campus Safety maintains an emergency notification system designed to contact students via email, phone, voicemail, text message and PDA in the event of an emergency on campus.

Johnson explained that the University is working to consolidate the existing text messaging options and include the general campus concept Mohr worked on.

“The University is developing a policy for campus-wide texting,” Johnson said.

“For now we have individual policies and policies.”

He made mention of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) with which the university must adhere to.

“We want to find a consistent vendor to eliminate access issues and consolidate the maintenance and responsibility.”

Currently there is a hold on the $600 initial deposit for the technology.

As of now, Johnson anticipates the text messaging service will be disabled for the rest of the quarter.