Esther Hugo, Outreach Coordinator
Santa Monica College
Blackboard Connect for Higher Education
“The ability to send personalized messages by phone and e-mail lets us reach students in their own language to provide individual attention; students are excited to get a call from the college, and parents become more involved. The [Blackboard Connect] service helps us make a large system and institution more personal and student-centered.”
Dean Carol Genese, Monroe College
Blackboard Connect for Higher Education
“We recognized a need to communicate regularly with our high-risk students to keep them staying connected, feeling connected and being connected. I found that the human touch—the human voice—was an enormous factor in communicating with our students. Our retention is off the charts: we’ve never seen retention rates this high. The [Blackboard Connect] service enables me to reach 95% of the students when I need to. It’s an eye-opener. The phones really work.”
Don Phillips, Superintendent, Poway Unified School District, CA
Blackboard Connect for K-12
“The service enabled us to reach parents, teachers, students, and staff before, during, and after the fire emergency. We were able to send messages each day to alert people to the situation as it developed, and update them about when our schools would reopen after the threat had passed…
We knew how to respond quickly to reach our community because we already had a lot of experience using the Connect-ED service on daily basis. We were successful in reaching most of our community even though almost two thirds of families in our district were evacuated at one point.”
Dr. Bobbi Mahler, Superintendent, Centralia School District, CA
Blackboard Connect for K-12
"Using [Blackboard Connect] to communicate with parents on absences, truancy, and important school issues, we saw an increase in our district's daily attendance. Parents have grown accustomed to getting the calls and we are reinforcing our culture of accountability."
Richard A. Cohen, Mayor, Agawam, MA
Blackboard Connect for Government
“With satellite TV it may be difficult for us to ensure that residents are able to receive important health and safety information via the local media. We turned to the [Blackboard Connect] system to augment our communication strategy and ensure that we are prepared to provide leadership when it’s needed most.”
Rick Smith, Deputy Director of Emergency Management,
Town of St. James, NC
Blackboard Connect for Government
“...Our town had only recently initiated the [Blackboard Connect] service. We had made the first upload of our resident phone number database and had gone through one online training session to review the basic capabilities of the system. With only that initial orientation we were able to dispatch an urgent message quickly and effectively and with positive feedback from our residents.”