Campus Alert Archive
UofM

A Sunday-Morning Threat to McWherter Library — and a Notification Gap That Memphis Students Noticed

TNthreat of violenceemergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed HoaxDetermined to be a hoax. The institutional response is documented because it reveals how the alert system performed under a perceived real threat.

On Sunday morning, August 31, 2025, Memphis Police Department officers responded to a threatening phone call directed at the University of Memphis's Ned R. McWherter Library. Campus police arrived within a minute, swept the closed building, and found nothing. The threat was determined to be a hoax — part of a nationwide wave of hoax threats targeting universities during the first weeks of the 2025 fall semester. Memphis students complained that the UofM Alert / TigerText notification arrived noticeably after local media had already reported the threat.

Alerts
1
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
University of Memphis
Public R1 · TN
~21,800 studentsEverbridgeUofM Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

1 message in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Approximate reconstructionFOX13 Memphis reporting paraphrasing the UofM Alert / TigerText notification language used after the August 31, 2025 hoax243 chars
UofM Alert: Memphis Police responded to a threat made to McWherter Library this morning. The building has been swept and no threat was found. The threat is being investigated as a hoax. There is no danger to campus. Continue normal activities.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed from FOX13 Memphis and Action News 5 reporting — exact timestamp not published; multiple students told FOX13 the alert reached them after local TV had already broadcast the threat
UofM moved off the older 'TigerText' branding for its [Everbridge-powered notification platform](https://www.memphis.edu/police/everbridge.php) in recent years, but students still colloquially refer to all university SMS as 'TigerText' — the disjunct is itself a communications-trust issue
Phrased to lead with what already happened ('Memphis Police responded… and no threat was found') rather than what students should do — appropriate for a post-clearance notification but illustrative of why students felt the alert was late rather than timely
Context

Background

The University of Memphis is a public R1 doctoral institution in Memphis, Tennessee with approximately 21,800 students. The Ned R. McWherter Library is the university's flagship library and one of the most-trafficked buildings on campus during the academic term. On the morning of Sunday, August 31, 2025, the Memphis Police Department received a threatening phone call directed at the library and dispatched officers to the campus to assist UofM Police. The library was closed for Sunday morning at the time, so the building was empty. Campus police entered within a minute of the threat and swept the building, finding no explosive device, no weapon, and no signs of forced entry. MPD classified the threat as a hoax — one of more than twenty similar university-targeted hoaxes during late August and early September 2025 — and a parallel wave of HBCU-targeted hoax threats was already underway. Students interviewed by FOX13 Memphis said the UofM Alert text was delayed enough that local broadcast media had already reported the incident before the notification went out — a recurring student concern about the Everbridge-powered platform that the university began phasing in to replace the older TigerText system. The University of Memphis maintains a Campus Update page that retains alert histories.
Analysis

Key Findings

Campus police swept the McWherter Library within a minute of the threat call — appropriate operational response given the building was empty on a Sunday morning
Notification timing became the story: FOX13 Memphis quoted students who said local TV had already broadcast the threat before the UofM Alert text reached their phones
The August 31, 2025 incident is part of a broader Fall 2025 wave of more than 20 hoax-threat calls targeting American universities, including a parallel HBCU-specific wave that hit roughly the same week
UofM is mid-migration from the older 'TigerText' brand to an Everbridge-powered platform; the colloquial mismatch between the brand students recognize and the platform they actually receive alerts on is itself a low-grade trust problem
Outcome
MPD classified the call as a hoax. No explosive or weapon was located in or near the McWherter Library, which was closed at the time of the threat. No arrests were announced. The incident became a focal point for student criticism of the UofM Alert / TigerText (Everbridge) notification timeline.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    Hoax threat made Sunday to the University of Memphis (Action News 5)
    actionnews5.com
  2. News
    Hoax campus threat prompts security concerns at University of Memphis (FOX13 Memphis)
    fox13memphis.com
  3. News
    Hoax threat made to University of Memphis: MPD (WREG)
    wreg.com
  4. News
    More Than 20 Active Shooting Hoaxes Have Locked Down Colleges Over the Past Two Weeks (The Trace)
    thetrace.org
  5. Official
    Everbridge (University of Memphis Police Services)
    memphis.edu
Tags
bomb-threathoaxlibrarytennesseepublic-r1memphisaactigertexteverbridgefall-2025-wavenotification-delaymcwherter-libraryHoax
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion