Lehigh
Clery Act Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications (HawkWatch)
Lehigh University's Campus Safety Division publishes a Clery Act Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications page explaining that its HawkWatch notification system carries three communication types, Clery-mandated Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications plus non-mandated Safety Bulletins, across channels ranging from text and push notifications to desktop takeovers and classroom announcement systems, with SMS and voice delivery requiring an explicit opt-in.
Read the official policy~7,692 studentsHawkWatch
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
System purpose and three communication typesnot 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.
Lehigh Campus Safety Division, Clery Act Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications page (host egress-blocked from this sandbox; text carried from search-index retrieval)Timely Warning criteriaverbatim
Timely Warnings are issued when certain crimes are reported that occurred on Lehigh-associated property and within Clery Act geography that are considered a serious or continuing threat to the campus community.
- The activation-criteria sentence: reported crime, Clery geography, serious or continuing threat. Unconfirmed for the same egress-block reason; queued for direct verification.
Delivery channel stacknot 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.
Lehigh Campus Safety Division, Clery Act Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications page (host egress-blocked from this sandbox; text carried from search-index retrieval)Safety Bulletin tier and email-only deliverynot 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.
Lehigh Campus Safety Division, Clery Act Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications page (host egress-blocked from this sandbox; text carried from search-index retrieval)SMS and voice opt-in requirementnot 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.
Lehigh Campus Safety Division, Clery Act Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications page (host egress-blocked from this sandbox; text carried from search-index retrieval)At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- Timely Warnings are issued when certain crimes are reported that occurred on Lehigh-associated property within Clery Act geography and are considered a serious or continuing threat to the campus community; Emergency Notifications cover emergencies, and Safety Bulletins cover incidents that do not meet the mandated Clery reporting criteria.
- Who decides
- The page is published by Lehigh's Campus Safety Division / University Police Department, which operates HawkWatch; the specific titles authorized to confirm an emergency and trigger a message were not readable from this sandbox (lehigh.edu egress-blocked).
- Timeliness standard
- The system is described as existing to provide a fast and effective means of communicating with the campus community; a precise without-delay sentence was not confirmable from this sandbox.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- Explicit two-tier Clery framing: Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications are described as required by the Jeanne Clery Campus Security Act, with Safety Bulletins as a third, non-mandated informational tier sent typically by email only.
- Testing cadence
- Not confirmable from this sandbox, but the archive's Lehigh case files document recurring campus emergency siren tests announced and completed through HawkWatch messages (for example July 2024, October 2024, and June 2025 test pairs).
- Scope & limits
- SMS text and voice delivery require an individual opt-in, so full mobile reach depends on registration; Safety Bulletins reach email only. The HawkWatch app extends alerts to app users.
ChannelsSmsPush NotificationEmailDesktop PopupDigital SignagePhone CallPa SystemSiren
Analysis
Reading the policy
Lehigh University, a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with 7,692 students in 2024-25, brands its campus notification system HawkWatch and documents it on a dedicated Clery Act Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications page maintained by the Campus Safety Division. The page describes a three-tier message taxonomy: Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications, both required by the Jeanne Clery Act, and Safety Bulletins, a lower tier for incidents that do not meet the mandated reporting criteria and are typically sent by university email only rather than through push and text alerts. Timely Warnings are issued for reported crimes on Lehigh-associated property within Clery Act geography that are considered a serious or continuing threat to the campus community. Both mandated tiers can reach students, faculty, and staff through an unusually deep channel stack: text messages, push notifications, emails, desktop computer takeovers, digital information boards, voice mails, and classroom announcement systems, and Lehigh separately documents an outdoor siren system. A significant scope caveat is that recipients must opt in to receive SMS text messages and voice messages; an October 2023 university news notice told students, faculty, and staff that action was required on their part for emergency notifications. HawkWatch is also the name of Lehigh's personal safety app, distributed on Google Play under an AppArmor package identifier, and the Campus Safety Division publishes a public HawkWatch Alert Log of sent messages, the seam this archive's 80-plus Lehigh cases draw on. All lehigh.edu hosts are egress-blocked from this research sandbox, so the quoted language below is carried from search-index retrievals of the official pages and is marked unconfirmed pending a direct character-for-character read.
Takeaways
Key findings
HawkWatch carries a three-tier taxonomy: Clery-mandated Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications plus non-mandated, typically email-only Safety Bulletins.
The published channel stack is unusually deep: text, push, email, desktop takeover, digital boards, voice mail, and classroom announcement systems, with a separately documented outdoor siren system.
SMS and voice delivery are opt-in, a reach caveat Lehigh itself flagged in an October 2023 action-required notice to campus.
The Campus Safety Division publishes a public HawkWatch Alert Log of transmitted messages, the source seam behind this archive's Lehigh case files.
No excerpt is verbatim-confirmed: every lehigh.edu host 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
80 documented times Lehigh’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Statement
- OfficialLehigh Campus Safety Division, HawkWatch Personal Safety Applicationcampussafety.lehigh.eduarchived copy
- Official
- ReferenceLehigh University enrollment 2024-25 (College Tuition Compare)collegetuitioncompare.comarchived copy
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningsafety-bulletinpennsylvaniahawkwatchprivate-r1
Added 2026-08-23Updated 2026-10-12Via ingestion