{
  "id": "2024-12-06-middlebury-college-first-shelter-in-place-drill",
  "slug": "middlebury-college-first-shelter-in-place-drill-2024-12-06",
  "institution": {
    "name": "Middlebury College",
    "shortName": "Middlebury",
    "state": "VT",
    "type": "private-liberal-arts",
    "alertSystemName": "Midd Alert",
    "enrollment": 2865
  },
  "incident": {
    "date": "2024-12-06",
    "type": "other",
    "cleryCategory": "advisory",
    "headline": "First-ever campus-wide shelter-in-place drill, announced as 'THIS IS A DRILL'",
    "headlinePublic": "First-ever campus-wide shelter-in-place drill, announced as 'THIS IS A DRILL'",
    "summary": "On Friday, December 6, 2024 at 1:50 PM EST, [Middlebury College conducted its first-ever campus-wide shelter-in-place drill](https://www.middleburycampus.com/article/2024/12/college-to-conduct-first-shelter-in-place-drill-this-week), a 15-minute exercise to test the [Midd Alert](https://www.middlebury.edu/emergency-response/emergency-training-and-support-information/emergency-notification-systems) emergency notification system and familiarize the campus community with shelter-in-place terminology. The verbatim alert text used 'THIS IS A DRILL' in all caps at both ends of the message, a documentation-quality example of how universities signal exercise traffic versus real emergencies.",
    "outcome": "Drill completed at 2:05 PM EST without incident. No live simulations (such as active shooter scenarios) were included. The exercise established the template Middlebury would repeat in May 2025, July 2025, and September 2025 drills.",
    "resolution": "test"
  },
  "alerts": [
    {
      "sequence": 1,
      "type": "initial",
      "timestamp": "2024-12-06T13:50:00-05:00",
      "channel": "sms",
      "verbatimText": "Midd Alert – Urgent - This is a Shelter in Place DRILL. Seek shelter in the nearest building away from windows. THIS IS A DRILL.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": true,
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.middlebury.edu/stories/archive/2024/11/shelter-place-drill-set-december-6",
      "sourceDescription": "Middlebury College Midd Stories, official pre-drill announcement that published the exact alert text to be sent on December 6",
      "annotations": [
        "Verbatim from the [Midd Stories pre-drill announcement](https://www.middlebury.edu/stories/archive/2024/11/shelter-place-drill-set-december-6); Middlebury published the alert wording in advance so the community could recognize it as a drill",
        "'DRILL' appears three times: once capitalized in 'Shelter in Place DRILL,' and once in the bookending all-caps 'THIS IS A DRILL' at the end",
        "Uses an em-dash and the word 'Urgent' as the second-position field, preserving the visual recognizability of a real Midd Alert while making the drill nature unambiguous",
        "128 characters, fits SMS single-segment limits"
      ],
      "characterCount": 128
    }
  ],
  "context": "[Middlebury College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebury_College) is a private liberal arts college of approximately 2,865 students in [Middlebury, Vermont](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebury,_Vermont). On November 21, 2024, the college [announced](https://www.middlebury.edu/staff-council/news/november-21-2024-update-0) that it would conduct its first-ever campus-wide shelter-in-place drill on Friday, December 6, 2024, from 1:50 to 2:05 PM EST. The college publicly pre-released the exact alert wording, 'Midd Alert – Urgent - This is a Shelter in Place DRILL. Seek shelter in the nearest building away from windows. THIS IS A DRILL.', so the community would recognize the message as a test rather than a real emergency. The 15-minute drill was the first in what became a [recurring program](https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2025/09/upcoming-shelter-place-drill-september-25-2025) of shelter-in-place exercises at Middlebury, with subsequent drills on [May 2, 2025](https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2025/04/shelter-place-drill-set-friday-may-2), [July 24, 2025](https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2025/07/shelter-place-drill-thursday-july-24-2025), and [September 25, 2025](https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2025/09/upcoming-shelter-place-drill-september-25-2025). Middlebury's program represents a notable institutional choice for a NESCAC liberal arts college; among peer institutions, [Williams College](https://williamsrecord.com/468598/news/cole-ave-shooting-leaves-one-wounded-causes-campus-lockdown/) does not appear to have publicly documented an equivalent campus-wide drill program as of 2024, and [Bowdoin's post-Lewiston](https://bowdoinorient.com/2024/01/26/door-lock-schedule-embraced-after-lewiston-shooting/) safety response leaned more heavily on building access controls than on practice drills.",
  "keyFindings": [
    "Documented example of a 'system test / drill' campus alert, fills a gap in the archive's incident-type coverage noted in TEMPLATES_INDEX.md",
    "Middlebury's pre-release of exact alert text is an unusual transparency practice, most institutions publish only that 'a drill will occur' without disclosing wording",
    "Triple-DRILL phrasing ('Shelter in Place DRILL' + 'THIS IS A DRILL' bookend) reflects post-2010s best practice for distinguishing exercise from real-world alerts",
    "Marks Middlebury's first-ever campus-wide shelter-in-place drill, followed by quarterly drills throughout 2025, suggesting an institutional commitment to regular practice",
    "Notable for a NESCAC institution, where publicly documented campus-wide shelter-in-place drill programs were not common as of late 2024"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Shelter-in-Place Drill Set for December 6 (Middlebury College Midd Stories)",
      "url": "https://www.middlebury.edu/stories/archive/2024/11/shelter-place-drill-set-december-6",
      "type": "official-archive"
    },
    {
      "title": "College to conduct first shelter-in-place drill this week (The Middlebury Campus)",
      "url": "https://www.middleburycampus.com/article/2024/12/college-to-conduct-first-shelter-in-place-drill-this-week",
      "type": "student-newspaper"
    },
    {
      "title": "November 21, 2024 Update (Middlebury Staff Council)",
      "url": "https://www.middlebury.edu/staff-council/news/november-21-2024-update-0",
      "type": "official-archive"
    },
    {
      "title": "Emergency Notification Systems (ENS), Middlebury College Emergency Response",
      "url": "https://www.middlebury.edu/emergency-response/emergency-training-and-support-information/emergency-notification-systems",
      "type": "official-archive"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": "high",
  "tags": [
    "drill",
    "test",
    "system-test",
    "private-liberal-arts",
    "nescac",
    "vermont",
    "first-ever",
    "midd-alert",
    "shelter-in-place-drill",
    "documentation-template"
  ],
  "dateAdded": "2026-05-13",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-05-29",
  "addedBy": "ingestion"
}