KSU
Emergency Notifications (Office of Emergency Management)
Kennesaw State University's Office of Emergency Management notification page describes Rave Alert as an opt-out mass notification system, automatically loaded with faculty, staff, and student data, layered with Alertus desktop alerts, outdoor sirens carrying prerecorded messages that are tested at noon on the first Wednesday of every month, the university webpage, and social media.
Read the official policy~51,375 studentsRave Alert / Alertus
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Opt-out enrollment architecturenot yet verified against the source
The policy addresses this topic; its exact wording has not yet been verified against the source, so no text is quoted here. Open the official policy to read it.
KSU Office of Emergency Management, Emergency Notifications page (host egress-blocked from this sandbox; text carried from search-index retrieval)Siren scope and prerecorded messagesverbatim
The warning sirens at the Kennesaw Campus are omnidirectional sirens that have a prerecorded message to indicate the type of emergency situation that is occurring on campus. The siren warning system is only used for situations that require the KSU community to take shelter indoors immediately from an imminent threat.
- Defines the siren tier narrowly: shelter-indoors-immediately situations only, with prerecorded hazard-type messages rather than tone-only sounding. Unconfirmed pending a direct read.
Monthly siren test cadenceverbatim
This system is tested at noon on the first Wednesday of every month.
- A concrete, published test cadence for the siren layer. Unconfirmed for the egress-block reason.
Multi-layered channel stackverbatim
Kennesaw State University utilizes outdoor warning sirens, email notifications, text notifications, voice phone call notifications, a desktop override system, the Kennesaw State University webpage, and social media pages to provide emergency messages to our students, faculty, staff, visitors, and other community stakeholders.
- Seven named layers including the Alertus desktop override, with visitors explicitly inside the stated audience. Unconfirmed pending a direct read.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- Rave Alert and the layered channels are used for emergency situations affecting the campus community; the siren system specifically is reserved for situations that require the KSU community to take shelter indoors immediately from an imminent threat.
- Who decides
- The system is managed by the KSU Office of Emergency Management; the Department of Public Safety and University Police publishes timely warnings. Specific activation titles were not readable from this sandbox (kennesaw.edu egress-blocked).
- Timeliness standard
- The systems are described as promptly alerting students, faculty, and staff in emergencies; a precise without-delay sentence from the ASR was not confirmable from this sandbox.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- Timely warnings are handled through the Department of Public Safety and University Police and documented in the Annual Security and Fire Safety Report; the OEM page frames Rave Alert and its layers as the emergency notification apparatus.
- Testing cadence
- The outdoor siren system is tested at noon on the first Wednesday of every month.
- Scope & limits
- Opt-out enrollment: faculty, staff, and student data is automatically uploaded into Rave Alert. Sirens cover the Kennesaw campus outdoors; the multi-layered stack extends reach to visitors via sirens, webpage, and social media.
ChannelsSmsEmailPhone CallSirenDesktop PopupWebsite
Analysis
Reading the policy
Kennesaw State University, a University System of Georgia institution whose Fall 2025 enrollment reached a record 51,375, documents its notification architecture on the Office of Emergency Management's Emergency Notifications page. The core system is Rave Alert, which can send text, email, and voice calls and push information to social media outlets. The page's most distinctive stated commitment is enrollment architecture: unlike many universities, KSU describes its system as opt-out, with faculty, staff, and student data automatically uploaded so no one has to register to be reachable. Around that core, KSU layers what it calls a multi-layered approach: outdoor warning sirens on the Kennesaw campus, described as omnidirectional units carrying prerecorded messages indicating the type of emergency, reserved for situations requiring the community to take shelter indoors immediately from an imminent threat and tested at noon on the first Wednesday of every month; an Alertus desktop override system; the university webpage; and social media pages, all aimed at students, faculty, staff, visitors, and other community stakeholders. The Department of Public Safety and University Police separately publishes safety notifications including Clery timely warnings, and the university's Annual Security and Fire Safety Report carries the formal timely warning and emergency notification policy statements. This archive's KSU case files, from the 2024 carjacking lockdown to 2026 weather relays, show the system in operation across both the Kennesaw and Marietta campuses. All kennesaw.edu hosts are egress-blocked from this research sandbox, so quoted language below is carried from search-index retrievals of the official pages and marked unconfirmed pending a direct character-for-character read.
Takeaways
Key findings
KSU describes Rave Alert as an opt-out system with faculty, staff, and student data automatically uploaded, removing the registration reach caveat.
The siren layer is tightly scoped to imminent-threat shelter-indoors situations, uses prerecorded hazard-type messages, and is tested at noon on the first Wednesday of every month.
The published stack spans sirens, email, text, voice, Alertus desktop override, the university webpage, and social media, with visitors named in the audience.
Timely warnings run through the Department of Public Safety and University Police with policy statements in the Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.
No excerpt is verbatim-confirmed: kennesaw.edu is egress-blocked from this research sandbox, so quoted language is carried from search-index retrievals and flagged for direct verification.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
12 documented times KSU’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Statement
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warninggeorgiaravealertussirensopt-out
Added 2026-08-23Updated 2026-09-14Via ingestion