The students at Butler University in Indianapolis, IN were very dissatisfied with their old emergency phone system. It was unreliable and gave little assurance of security to the students and staff at Butler. Chief of Butler University Police Department, David Selby, took on the challenge and investigated all the emergency phone systems on the market. We are pleased that his research led him to choose Code Blue as the system for the university. With a significant part of the funding provided by George and Elaine Klein, co-presidents of the Butler Parent Council, Selby was able to move quickly on the project and installed 34 Code Blue units.
“The phones make a statement on campus,” Selby said. “Anyone that comes to the campus can see the university cares for the students and takes the community seriously.” Chief Selby believes that the mere appearance of the 9 foot Code Blue 1-s reassures the students and deters incidents.
Butler is also an advanced beta site for Code Blue pendants and diagnostic software. Butler has provided pendants to twenty disabled students and plans on expanding to more students in the future. The Code Blue pendant allows any user to activate a Code Blue unit, equipped with a speakerphone, at a distance of up to 150 feet or more from the unit. This is a significant increase in the security that can be offered as the range of security is dramatically increased. This feature is an option to the speakerphone and is extremely reliable and cost-effective. Each pendant has a unique site code and personal ID code that allows the Public Safety department to identify the name and location of any student who activates a pendant in the range of a Code Blue unit. Personal and medical information appear on the screen along with the unit’s location. This information helps the responder to be prepared for any type of emergency or assistance call. In addition, the enhanced acoustic response of the microphone allows audio monitoring at significant distances from the unit.
Where most Code Blue units sold to universities are the single-button emergency units, Chief Selby and the Butler administration, working with the student advisory board, chose the two-button with keypad model. By allowing the students and staff to utilize the units for campus assistance and information calls, Butler has enhanced the Code Blue units to be not only an emergency response system, but also a campus wide communication system. From what we hear from the students, this has been a very popular decision.