BU
BU Alert Emergency Notification System
BU Alert is Boston University's emergency notification system, established to communicate with the campus community for weather closures, utility outages, emergencies, or situations requiring University response, delivering messages via text, phone, email, and the Everbridge mobile app and meeting the emergency-notification requirements of the Clery Act.
Read the official policyInstitution
Boston University
Private R1 · MA
~37,000 studentsBU Alert
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Purpose and scope of BU Alertverbatim
Boston University has established the BU Alert notification system for the purpose of communicating with the campus community for weather closures, utility outages, emergencies, or situations requiring the response or attention of the University community.
- — Scope expressly includes operational events (weather closures, utility outages), not only immediate dangers.
Clery emergency-notification and timely-warning framingverbatim
The system also meets the emergency notification requirements of the Clery Act.
- — BU's TechWeb page also states timely warning messages will be issued through BU Alert, via text or email and posted on the BUPD website.
Decision authority and activationreconstructed
The Chief of the Boston University Police Department or a member of the command staff, including Deputy Chief, Captain, Lieutenant or Sergeant is responsible for confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of the University.
- — Reconstructed from the Annual Security Report as surfaced in search results; the source PDF returned HTTP 403 in this environment, so exact wording could not be re-verified character-for-character. Marked not verbatim out of caution.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- BU Alert is used for weather closures, utility outages, emergencies, or situations requiring the response or attention of the University community, and upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of the University.
- Who decides
- The Chief of the Boston University Police Department or a member of the command staff (Deputy Chief, Captain, Lieutenant, or Sergeant) confirms the emergency, determines which segment(s) of the community to notify and the message content, and initiates the notification system.
- Timeliness standard
- Upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to health or safety, BUPD command staff initiate the notification system; the system is designed for rapid, reliable mass communication consistent with Clery emergency-notification requirements.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- BU Alert meets the emergency-notification requirements of the Clery Act and is also used to issue timely warning messages (via text message or email and posted on the BUPD website), serving both Clery functions through one system.
- Testing cadence
- Boston University conducts an annual federally mandated test of BU Alert, typically in the fall semester (e.g., September 19, 2025, and September 15, 2023), with the test message posted to the BU homepage, BU Today, the Emergency Management website, and @BUPolice on X.
- Scope & limits
- Activation requires confirmation of a significant emergency by BUPD command staff, who exercise judgment over which community segments to notify and what content to send; the system covers operational events (weather, utility outages) as well as immediate health-and-safety threats.
ChannelsSmsPhone CallEmailPush NotificationWebsiteTwitter X
Analysis
Reading the policy
Boston University frames BU Alert broadly. Per BU Emergency Management, "Boston University has established the BU Alert notification system for the purpose of communicating with the campus community for weather closures, utility outages, emergencies, or situations requiring the response or attention of the University community." The stated intent is to provide guidance and information on how individuals can secure themselves and make decisions for their own safety. The system spans BU's three campuses (Charles River, Fenway, and Medical) and is designed to communicate with cell phones (text and voice), landlines, email systems, and the Everbridge mobile app during a crisis or time-sensitive situation.
Decision authority sits with the BU Police command structure. As documented in BU's Annual Security Report, the Chief of the Boston University Police Department or a member of the command staff (including Deputy Chief, Captain, Lieutenant, or Sergeant) is responsible for confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of the University; upon confirmation, they determine the appropriate segment(s) of the BU community to notify, determine the content of the message, and initiate the notification system. This mirrors the Clery Act emergency-notification structure.
On Clery framing, BU's TechWeb description of the BU Emergency Notification System states that the system also meets the emergency notification requirements of the Clery Act, and that timely warning messages will be issued through the BU Alert system, sent via text message or email and also posted on the BUPD website. The system thus serves both the Clery emergency-notification and timely-warning functions through the same channels.
Enrollment is mandatory for students — enrollment in BU Alert is a prerequisite for course registration, with contact information maintained through the MyBU Student Portal (Personal tab). Parents and visitors can opt in by texting the keyword BUALERT to 888777. Boston University runs an annual federally mandated test of the system: recent tests have been held in the fall (for example, September 19, 2025, around 4:50 p.m., and September 15, 2023, around 4:00 p.m.), with the test message simultaneously posted to the BU homepage, BU Today, the Emergency Management website, and the @BUPolice account on X. Scope is bounded by the confirmation requirement and the command-staff judgment about which community segments to notify and what content to send.
Takeaways
Key findings
BU Alert's stated purpose covers weather closures, utility outages, emergencies, and situations requiring University response — broader than life-safety alone.
BUPD command staff (Chief, Deputy Chief, Captain, Lieutenant, or Sergeant) confirm the emergency, set message content and audience, and initiate the notification system.
BU Alert meets the Clery Act emergency-notification requirements and also delivers timely warnings via text/email and the BUPD website.
Delivery channels include text, voice/phone, email, and the Everbridge mobile app across the Charles River, Fenway, and Medical campuses.
Student enrollment in BU Alert is a prerequisite for course registration; the system is tested annually each fall under the federal mandate.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
9 documented times BU’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
+ 1 more in the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningcleryeverbridgemassachusettsprivate-r1
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion