The Student Government Association (SGA) held their first meeting of the semester Sept. 18 where guest speaker Amanda Eisele, the senior director of student involvement and leadership, introduced the new program Coastal Carolina University is planning to implement at a later date.
Real Response is an anonymous texting program which allows students to report instances of hazing, bias, issues relating to Title IX and more. All students will be able to anonymously communicate any concerns they may have on campus.
CCU student athletes have already been given access and utilize the platform. Eisele said they have been using the app for at least two years and used it regularly, according to the athletes.
There are many ways people can make reports since the app acts as a regular, active phone number.
“A concern about a player, like a mental health concern, for instance, that’s one of the ways that people can make their report,” Eisele said, “I’m concerned about my coach, the way my coach is speaking to me. That’s another way.”
CCU currently has several anonymous platforms, however, Eisele describes them as “ineffective” due to their one-sided nature. Clemson University currently uses Real Response on their campus, and CCU would like to implement it in a similar way.
“Someone shares information, no one then has anyone to communicate with to get more details and sometimes that creates kind of a stop and the inability to get enough information to hold someone accountable or to move forward with a solution for that,” Eisele said.
The Real Response platform will have two-way communication, but still remain anonymous.
Eisele said not only are universities starting to implement this platform, but the Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Football League (NFL) have as well.
“MLB has used it, basically every national association started using it during COVID to make sure players were following COVID protocols,” Eisele said. “It was a checks and balance system, so they’re rolling out to a few institutions campuswide.”
The benefit of the platform is students can remain entirely anonymous and receive an automatic response either from an administrator or an artificial intelligence (AI) response. The administrator responses will operate primarily during business hours.
