Boise State
Emergency Notification (Policy 12110)
Boise State University's Emergency Notification Policy 12110 directs the Department of Public Safety Dispatch to send emergency notifications through BroncoAlert — a phone- and text-based system — without delay upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation, and is paired with the separate Timely Warning Policy 12090 for Clery crime alerts.
Read the official policyInstitution
Boise State University
Public R1 · ID
~27,250 studentsBroncoAlert
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Without-delay timing and professional-judgment exceptionverbatim
The University will, without delay, and taking into account the safety of the community, determine the content of the notification and initiate the notification system, unless issuing a notification would, in the professional judgment of responsible authorities, compromise efforts to assist a victim or to contain, respond to, or otherwise mitigate the emergency.
- — Adopts the federal 'without delay' standard verbatim, including the professional-judgment carve-out for victim assistance and emergency mitigation.
Dispatch authority and BroncoAlert useverbatim
The Department of Public Safety Dispatch will send Emergency Notifications through BroncoAlert or other communication vehicles.
- — Names Public Safety Dispatch as the sender and BroncoAlert as the primary vehicle, while leaving room for 'other communication vehicles.'
Segment-targeting of notificationsverbatim
The Department of Public Safety will determine the appropriate segment (or segments) of the campus community to receive a notification based on which segments of the University population need information about the Emergency.
- — Codifies need-based segmentation of who receives an alert; the policy adds that generally the entire campus community is notified.
BroncoAlert system descriptionverbatim
BroncoAlert is a phone and text-based system allowing the university to proactively notify students, faculty, and staff when an emergency is taking place on or near campus.
- — Frames BroncoAlert as a phone- and text-based proactive notification system scoped to emergencies on or near campus.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- An emergency notification is sent for a significant emergency or dangerous situation on or near campus — urgent situations that could impact the safety of lives and protection of property. BroncoAlert is used for critical situations, including weather emergencies with the potential to affect health or safety. Policy 12090 governs the separate timely-warning trigger for Clery crimes posing a serious and ongoing threat.
- Who decides
- The Department of Public Safety Dispatch sends Emergency Notifications through BroncoAlert or other communication vehicles; the Boise State Department of Public Safety Communications Center (208-426-6911) sends BroncoAlert messages. For timely warnings (Policy 12090), the Department of Public Safety creates the message in consultation with the individuals listed in section 5.2 and, as needed, the Office of Communications and Marketing, university vice presidents, the University President, and Boise Police Department.
- Timeliness standard
- The University will, without delay, and taking into account the safety of the community, determine the content of the notification and initiate the notification system, unless issuing a notification would, in the professional judgment of responsible authorities, compromise efforts to assist a victim or to contain, respond to, or otherwise mitigate the emergency.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- Two separate codified policies map to the two Clery obligations: Policy 12110 (Emergency Notification, citing the Clery Act as legal basis) for significant emergencies/dangerous situations, and Policy 12090 (Timely Warning for Crime Prevention) for Clery crime warnings posing a serious and ongoing threat.
- Testing cadence
- Not confirmed verbatim in the sources reviewed; Boise State references annual reviews and trainings tied to emergency plans, but a specific BroncoAlert test schedule was not located in official text. (Left unstated to avoid fabrication.)
- Scope & limits
- Emergency notifications are reserved for urgent situations that could impact the safety of lives and protection of property on or near campus. Public Safety determines which campus segment(s) receive a notification based on need, though generally the entire campus community is notified. A notification may be withheld where, in responsible authorities' professional judgment, it would compromise efforts to assist a victim or to contain, respond to, or mitigate the emergency.
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Analysis
Reading the policy
Boise State is one of the cleaner examples of a formally codified, numbered campus-alert policy. Policy 12110, Emergency Notification, cites the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act as the legal basis for the university's responsibilities and procedures for issuing emergency notifications for emergency incidents and/or dangerous situations. Operationally, the Department of Public Safety Dispatch sends Emergency Notifications through BroncoAlert or other communication vehicles, and the Boise State Department of Public Safety Communications Center (208-426-6911) will only send messages through BroncoAlert for urgent situations that could impact the safety of lives and protection of property on or near campus.
The timing standard mirrors the federal regulatory language closely. The policy states the University will, without delay, and taking into account the safety of the community, determine the content of the notification and initiate the notification system, unless issuing a notification would, in the professional judgment of responsible authorities, compromise efforts to assist a victim or to contain, respond to, or otherwise mitigate the emergency. Scope/targeting is delegated to Public Safety, which determines the appropriate segment (or segments) of the campus community to receive a notification based on which segments of the population need information about the emergency; generally the University will send the entire campus community an Emergency Notification.
Boise State keeps the emergency-notification and timely-warning functions in separate policies. BroncoAlert is described as a phone and text-based system allowing the university to proactively notify students, faculty, and staff when an emergency is taking place on or near campus, and is used for critical situations including weather emergencies with the potential to affect health or safety; the system can also deliver alerts by email, phone call, X, Facebook, and RSS. The companion Timely Warning for Crime Prevention (Policy 12090) governs Clery timely warnings: the decision to issue weighs the nature of the crime, the serious and ongoing threat to the campus community, and the possible risks of sending a notice (such as compromising law enforcement efforts), with the message created in consultation among the individuals listed in the policy's section 5.2 and, as needed, the Office of Communications and Marketing, university vice presidents, the University President, and the Boise Police Department. The section 5.2 list of decision-makers was updated as of a June 2025 policy update.
Because boisestate.edu hosts return HTTP 403 (and the emergencymanagement.boisestate.edu host refused connection) to automated fetching in this environment, the verbatim excerpts below were captured from the official Boise State Policy Manual and Emergency Management page text as reproduced in search results and corroborated across multiple independent queries; specific test cadence and effective/revision dates beyond the noted June 2025 update were not confirmed verbatim and are left unstated rather than guessed.
Takeaways
Key findings
Boise State codifies emergency notifications in a formal numbered policy (12110), expressly grounded in the Clery Act, and keeps timely warnings in a separate Policy 12090.
The policy adopts the federal 'without delay' standard verbatim, with the professional-judgment exception for compromising victim assistance or emergency mitigation.
Public Safety Dispatch sends notifications through BroncoAlert — a phone- and text-based system that can also reach email, phone call, X, Facebook, and RSS — for urgent situations affecting lives or property on or near campus.
Public Safety targets the appropriate campus segment(s) by need, but generally notifies the entire campus community.
Timely-warning decisions (Policy 12090) weigh the nature of the crime, the serious and ongoing threat, and risks such as compromising law enforcement, with the section 5.2 decision-maker list updated as of June 2025.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
6 documented times Boise State’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- OfficialBroncoAlert Information — Emergency Management & Continuityemergencymanagement.boisestate.eduarchived copy
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actbroncoalertpolicy-12110public-r1idaho
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion