Haljit Basuljevic—Reporter
Recently, some of the emergency blue light phones throughout campus have been marked with caution tape across their faceplates.
For 20 years, the blue phones have been used for campus-based emergencies. However, they are malfunctioning with the same problems they have always had, such as water retention and deteriorating gateways.
“This has been an ongoing for several years with the code-blue phones,” said Director of the IT Department Raymond Kellogg.
He said figuring out the cause of the problems has been difficult. One indication is the piping underground fills with water, and the wires that connect from building to building oxidizes.
This causes the wires to have intermittent connections, he said, which disrupts the flow of energy between the two.
University Police Chief Joseph Dooley said he shares Kellogg’s thoughts about their malfunctions.
The police department, he said, has assigned a student worker to check the blue phones on a regular basis.
“We’re trying to stay ahead of the issue to identify where the problems are and get them fixed quickly,” said Dooley, “but again, it’s part of a much larger issue as to why they’re going down.”
An estimated 15 to 20 blue lights have been affected and were placed out of order. Why they have been shut down could be due to anything from a complete malfunction, to a speaker issue, and Dooley said the police department are urgent when it comes to staying on top of the problem.
Dooley also said he tells student to rely more on the LiveSafe app because of the deterioration.
However, Kellogg said although students have used the app for emergencies, there is no reason to consider eliminating the blue phones completely.
Photo Credit: August Pelliccio
Please note that a major point left out of this article from the interview is that there is currently an in process system led initiative to resolve the majority of issues with the Code Blue phones which includes replacing the analog gateways used to connect the CB phones to our digital phone system.