Early yesterday morning, University of Massachusetts authorities discovered a 30-rack box in Herter Hall with a battery attached, wires sticking out and a sign reading, “If this is moved it will explode.”

An e-mail was sent out at approximately 6:30 a.m., warning students that a “suspected explosive device,” was found in Herter. When the scene was cleared, another e-mail was sent out at about 9 a.m. alerting the campus community that the security alert had been lifted and classes would resume.The e-mails were definitely timely, but the real question is whether they were sufficient.

For some students it worked. They woke up and checked their e-mail or the UMass homepage, and they knew what was going on.

Other students, though, got off buses and were surprised to see campus so deserted, or showed up to empty lecture halls wondering why no one was there. They waited outside the library with hoodies up until it re-opened at 11 a.m. When Massachusetts Daily Collegian staff members approached students to ask how they heard about the scare, some students responded with, “What scare?”

Many students were woken up by text messages from their friends and frantic phone calls from their parents. Not everyone, though, checks their e-mail, or is lucky enough to be forewarned by friends or family.

Today, the threat wasn’t real, and no one was hurt. But would simply e-mailing students, staff and faculty be enough if something dangerous had truly been found on campus?

UMass has received a grant from the state to create a text messaging alert system, which administrators hope to implement in the coming months. Today’s events highlighted the need for such a system, and the need to have it soon.

It works at Montclair State University. The public university in northern New Jersey won the 2007 Campus Technology Innovators Award from Campus Technology magazine for their distribution of a Campus Connect cell phone.

Four thousand students, including all first years, have the cell phone. It can be used to receive information regarding campus activities. Most importantly, though, it provides Montclair students with quick and up-to-date information about serious situations occurring on campus.

No one expects UMass to start passing out cell phones. But instead of investing in a warning siren system, another option on the table, UMass should focus on implementing a voluntary text messaging system, similar to the one at Montclair. This would reach students who live off-campus as well as in dorms.

Inadequate communication between campus security and the UMass community could yield dangerous results. During this semester alone, two students have been stabbed outside the Student Union, two students have been attacked in their dorms with a baseball bat, and there has been a bomb scare in Herter Hall. After each incident, an e-mail from UMass campus security has followed.

It’s not enough. We need to replace campus security’s insufficient e-mails with a more effective text messaging system of alerts ? before anything else happens on campus that may threaten students’ security.

Unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of The Massachusetts Daily Collegian editorial board.