“With traditional addresses, you can pinpoint locations much more clearly,” Fischer said.

The changes are expected to enhance emergency response among police personnel, ultimately making for more precise response times, she said.

Although Bill Latta, MSU’s Finance and Operations Vice President and Treasurer, said the project will cost the university an estimated $190,000 — he said it is well worth the cost.

“It will help provide more precise information for responders to address emergencies on campus in a timely fashion,” Latta said. “It could turn around and save a life — that gives us all the reason in the world to go through with it.”

Since relying on verbal directions and building names can be confusing to 911 dispatchers, Fischer said the traditional addresses will allow for an exact location to notify emergency responders where they are needed.

As Ingham County transitions into a consolidated dispatch system, all individuals calling for aid will be directed to one dispatch center for first response. Once the transition is complete, it’s important for all areas to have a commonly understood and accepted addressing system to avoid confusion, she said.

The university recently started a communication campaign to raise awareness of the changes among residents and outside facilities that might be affected, she said.

The street addresses will be added onto the already-existing green signs that identify each building, Fischer said.

Although the main reason for the change is to allow for a more precise emergency response time, it also will reduce confusion among new students and visitors when navigating through campus as well as enhance postal services in the area, said Fischer.

Cynthia Erickson, post manager at East Lansing’s Post Office, 1140 Abbot Road, said the changes are necessary to keep up with new postal technology since MSU accounts for about 10 percent of the office’s daily mail.

“Ninety-five percent of mail is now automated,” Erickson said. “Right now, campus mail has to be manually sorted. ­… we need that automation to increase our efficiency.”

Landscape architecture junior Derell Griffin said although it might be hard to adjust to the new addresses at first, it is important for the university to adopt these changes.

“I think it will be very beneficial, but it might be kind of confusing at first,” Griffin said.

The project, which is an ongoing process, is anticipated to be completed in April 2012. The university will begin adding addresses to buildings in the south part of campus and move northward.