By Jamil Oakford/managing editor
Students now have another option for receiving text message alerts from the college’s registrar, business services and financial aid offices.
In an email sent out April 9, the college announced students can text “tccnotify” to 550-055 and sign up for text messages without having to sign into WebAdvisor or Blackboard. It can be done entirely by phone.
TR student Abbey Munzing isn’t receiving text messages from the school, but she thinks texting would be far more effective than what she’s been using.
“It’s a lot quicker,” she said. “It takes longer to log into my email or listen to a voicemail.”
The college put the text messaging system in place to communicate more effectively, said David Ximenez, enrollment and academic support associate vice chancellor.
“Research and data revealed what students use most frequently, and it was text messaging,” he said.
Students have been able to opt into text messaging alerts for upcoming registration deadlines, updates on their financial aid application and payment deadlines since spring 2017, Ximenez said.
TR student Riley Pickering doesn’t receive any texts either, but he said he would prefer them.
“I see what’s going on in my text messages because I check those every day,” he said.
When it comes to meeting deadlines, Pickering said it would help him to receive reminders through text.
“I’ve been close to missing them [deadlines], but I haven’t yet,” he said. “I would definitely benefit from the text messaging.”
For NE student Brook Swing, it would depend on the alert as to whether he would sign up for text messages from TCC.
“If it’s like a really important deadline, or something like that, then sure,” he said. “But like, if it’s a non-important one, or not as important I would need to like, specify or have specifications I could play around with.”
For students who don’t prefer text messaging, Ximenez said it’s OK.
“We still have email and phone calls and snail mail if that’s preferred,” he said. “We just have this option for students as a way to communicate with students more effectively.”
