Many items of yesterday's luxuries have become today's necessities. Cell phones are one such item.

Most college students own a cell phone and are not only use it for talking, but for listening to music, watching music videos and for texting. Now the BYU Police Department hopes to use this technology to warn the campus community in case of emergency.

"We thought we needed a system that provides us with several forms of communication," Lieutenant Arnold Lemmon said. "We don't want to only rely on text messaging, but is a part of emergency system."

Monday, the BYU Police sent out an email to both students and faculty with the steps needed to enroll in the system.

"We want to put the responsibility on you, the campus community, to enroll yourselves," Lemmon said.

Lemmon said even though BYU is one of the safest campuses for its size, the police department still feels a need and obligation to have the capability of notifying the campus community in case of emergency.

Along with text messaging, BYU has several other ways of reaching both students and faculty.

These ways include cell phone communications, emails, the campus telephone system (CISCO) and the campus portable radio system.

"I think that (text messaging) is effective," said Brant Choate, a BYU Student from Sacramento, Calif., "because most people read their text messages more than they would their emails."

Choate said text messages are shorter and to the point.

Lemmon explained that the enrollment for such a system is about 30 percent for other campuses.

"Our goal is to give 100 percent opportunity to our campus community to enroll," Lemmon said. "If they choose to or not, is strictly up to them."

Choate explained that he did not enroll following the email notification, and he said "it might be more effective to have little reminders after we log into Route Y."

The following are the steps needed to enroll to receive text messages from the university police in case of emergency:

1. Log in to Route Y.

2. Under the "Communications" tab, click the "Personal Information" tab.

3. Click on the "Contact" tab.

4. Click on "Emergency Alert Text Message/SMS" link.

5. Enter your cell phone number as directed and click the "Save" button.