MUW is committed to ensuring the campus community receives timely and accurate information in the event of a confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation occurring on the campus involving an immediate threat to the health and safety of the students and employees. The MUW PD is the department who will confirm the existence of a credible emergency event or threat. The University will use the emergency notification system through Blackboard Connect to provide alerts via W-Alert. This is the MUW emergency notification service available to all students, faculty and staff. It can be used to send emergency messages within minutes of the occurrence of an incident. Once the emergency notification has been made, more detailed follow-up information will be released to the campus community.
The Chief of Police or designee has the authorization to send emergency notifications. Once confirmation of an emergency event or threat, an emergency notification will be sent to the University community to notify members about the incident that occurred on campus, where it is determined that the incident may pose an ongoing threat to members of the University community. An emergency notification will be sent without delay and unless a notification will compromise efforts to assist a victim or contain, respond to, or otherwise mitigate emergency.
The emergency notification will be issued through the University’s messaging system called W-Alert to students, faculty and staff.
The W-Alert may encompass the following modes of communication:
- Text (SMS) message
- Email university email addresses
- Broadcast automated calling
- Social Media (Facebook and Twitter)
- University’s homepage website
- Electronic display boards
Emergency notifications have a broad focus and may be issued without delay for the following list of emergencies, but not limited to:
- Natural disaster
- Weather
- Environmental
- Terrorist attack
- String of larcenies
- Power outage
Emergency notification will include some or all of the following information:
- Date, time and location of the reported crime
- Summary of the incident
- Description of the suspect and/or vehicle, if available
- Special instructions or incident specific safety tips
- Statement as to where additional information may be obtained