Baldwin Wallace Information Technology is no longer supporting the security app Rave Guardian which would allow students and staff to contact Safety and Security with the click of a button.
Dan Karp, assistant vice president and director of University Relations, said: “It would still be useful, but we are no longer making sure that it works with all our systems.”
Karp said that this change does not mean that you could not still have the Rave Guardian app on your phone. BW Safety and Security could still be called through this app, but the information accessible on this app would not be updated. For example, if the phone number of BW Safety and Security changes, the app would not reflect this change, he said.
In 2017, BW Safety and Security partnered with IT to bring the Rave Guardian app to campus. This app allowed anyone to immediately contact BW Safety and Security with an option to share real-time location status of the caller’s phone. It acted as a mobile emergency blue light.
Karp said that just before the COVID-19 pandemic, BW was already planning to stop supporting the app because of the minimal usage by staff and students. In the wake of the unprecedented COVID-19 lockdown, the app was used as a COVID-19 reporting tool. BW would also use it for health check-ins to make sure that students were able to go to class safely during the pandemic.
However, after the COVID-19 lockdown ended, Rave Guardian was forgotten by the administration. The app was still listed on IT’s website under the “Mobile Apps that can be used at Baldwin Wallace University” section online until this fall of 2023, despite IT no longer supporting it for over a year.
Despite IT getting rid of support for this app due to minimal usage, some students said they would find this app helpful, especially since BW has also gotten rid of some of the emergency blue light boxes around campus.
J.J. Pinckney, a first-year media production student, said that an app like this would be an “amazing resource” for all students.
“When people get scared, their hands shake, and they can’t really type in phone numbers that easily,” Pinckney said.
Jonah Vittoria, a freshman BFA acting student, said that he was “shocked” that the administration had not come up with an alternative idea of a security app. Even though he felt safe, an app like Rave Guardian would reassure him that BW cares about his safety.
Both Pickney and Vittoria said that most students would not have BW Safety and Security’s phone number saved in their phones otherwise.
BWIT and Safety and Security both declined to comment.
In an email sent to The Exponent, Deanna Mushat, BW’s manager of telecommunications, said: “We are no longer using the Guardian app. We use Rave Alert for our emergency communications.”
