That’s right, starting this fall cellular phones will be handed out to every resident student on campus. FDU has teamed up with Rave Wireless and Sprint to create the brand new FDU Mobile Communication Program.
According to GetRave.com (the Rave Wireless Web site specifically dedicated to FDU’s new plan), the program is set out to “provide students with a new mobile phone-based safety and academic communication system.” Through this new plan students can always be connected to everything going on around campus. Things such as text messages will be sent to alert students about emergencies and school closings. The Web site explains that students will also be able to keep up to date on “events happening on campus; check the latest news from the Daily Record; view N.J. Transit schedules; easily group text messages with friends, hall mates, and members of clubs; check FDU e-mails and receive class changes and cancellation alerts from faculty.”
Another special feature included in every cell phone is Rave Guardian, which uses the Global Positioning System (GPS). Students could use this program to alert Public Safety whenever they feel unsafe on campus. Public Safety would then immediately know the student’s location and identity and set out to help them. Students could also use this program to set a timer, which if not deactivated would cause a Public Safety officer to call them at the end of the allotted time to make sure that they are safe. This would come in handy if a student feels unsafe walking across campus or back from their cars late at night.
Every resident student received their free Samsung M500 as soon as they’re cleared to enter their dorms and have picked up their room keys.
This phone includes 50 free anytime minutes a month and all of the programs mentioned above. Students will have unlimited nights (starting at 7 p.m.) and weekends and unlimited text messages to other Rave/Sprint mobile users. This phone and the base plan will be free for the 2007-2008 academic year only. A $100 fee will be charged to all residents students starting Fall 2008. Different plans that include more anytime minutes (from 400 to 2,000 minutes) range at about $20.25 to $70.25 a month. There are also four other phones to choose from with prices ranging from $99.99 to $269.99.
Commuter students that want to get in on the plan will also receive a free cell phone. The only catch is that they will have to pay an extra $29.74 a month. More information on phones and plans can be found at GetRave.com, or by visiting the FDU Mobile store on campus located downstairs in the library, in what used to be the Music Room.
The cell phones received by students will be replacing all landlines in residence halls. In this aspect, this may be a good idea since many felt that the landlines were not being used in the first place.
“The landlines were a joke,” said junior Nicole Leone. “They said we needed landlines and voicemail in case professors needed to contact us or to let us know about closings and stuff, but they never used them.” She doesn’t believe the new cell phones will be made much use of either.
Junior Katrina Musto thinks that the landlines did work well, yet many students didn’t install them.
“So making these new phones mandatory is a smart move, because that way students will be pushed to get them on the spot, as opposed to being lazy and forgetting about it,” she said.
The overall reason for these cell phones to come about is to have a quick, easy, and definite way to get in contact with students.
“I think it’s a good idea in that it will allow the college to relay messages more easily,” says junior Will Kole. The past usage of landlines and mass emails was unreliable because “not everyone sets up their landlines or checks their email,” he added. Yet Kole still doesn’t believe the new plan will be better than a normal email. It will just be another way of getting in touch with students.
Junior Amanda Damato believes that FDU Mobile might come in handy as a backup plan for already established resources on campus.
“I guess it could be a good thing,” she said. “For example, if the Web site’s down, which it often is. Letting students know about homework, exams, snow days. It might not be such a bad idea.”
Despite all this, problems are already surfacing on what should be done with the cell phone plans currently held by the students. Although FDU, Rave and Sprint are making it as easy as possible to switch over to the FDU Mobile plan (even handing students $50 reimbursements to switch their existing number to their new FDU Mobile phone), students are still puzzled as to what their final decision should be.
“I have a family plan on my phone, so for someone like me it doesn’t pay for me to get another
one through FDU,” Damato said.
Leone agrees, “I’m always on the phone with someone in my family and we can talk free since we all have the same service, but now we might have to get different plans and it might cost a lot more money. I think it’s unfair to add a requirement that’s so interfering.”
Many students seem to be using the FDU Mobile as their second cell phone, if at all.
“I plan on only using the FDU one as a second phone, like for emergencies,” Musto said. “I
will keep the FDU phone on and available, but will mainly use my cell phone.”
“It’s just kind of annoying because I think that one cell phone is enough,” Damato said.
Everyone agrees that it’s up to the university and the students together to make the best
of this new technology.
“A lot of people aren’t taking it too seriously already and they definitely won’t if the school doesn’t use the service and make it worth it,” Leone said. “We’ll see if these phones last.”
LORENA CHOUZA
Published in the August 29, 2007 issue of The Metro.
