OSU
OSU Alert — Campus Alert System, Safety Notices, and Crisis Communications
Oregon State University's OSU Alert is a Rave-powered campus alert system that lets public safety officials push a recorded voice message, an email message, and a text message to every employee and student when a significant emergency, dangerous situation, or sudden closure occurs; OSU separately issues Clery timely warnings and safety notices for serious or ongoing crime threats.
Read the official policyInstitution
Oregon State University
Public R1 · OR
~37,900 studentsOSU Alert
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Campus Alert System — modes and reachverbatim
The Campus Alert System allows public safety officials to create emergency alerts that contain a recorded voice message, an email message, and a text message and send them to the current database of contact information for all employees and students.
- — Documents the three simultaneous delivery modes — recorded voice call, email, and text — pushed to the full employee/student contact database.
Crisis-situation contact verificationverbatim
In crisis situations, the system will try all means of contacting each person in the database, and uses sophisticated means to verify contact so that we know we have reached everyone we could.
- — Shows the system's escalation logic: in a crisis it exhausts every channel and verifies contact rather than firing once and stopping.
Clery timely-warning three-part testverbatim
OSU issues a timely warning whenever: (1) a crime specified under the Jeanne Clery Act (Clery Act) is reported to the Oregon State University Department of Public Safety (DPS), a campus security authority (CSA), or OSU is informed by law enforcement; (2) there is a serious or ongoing threat to students and employees because of the crime and (3) the crime occurred at a reportable location defined by the Clery Act.
- — A clean, enumerated three-prong test mapping directly to the Clery timely-warning standard: reported crime + serious/ongoing threat + reportable location.
Discretionary non-Clery notificationsverbatim
OSU may also send additional safety notifications not required by the Clery Act to increase safety and awareness for the OSU community.
- — Establishes a discretionary awareness tier beyond the Clery mandate, paralleling the mandated timely warnings.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- OSU Alert is used only when a significant emergency, dangerous situation, or sudden campus closure/delay occurs on a university campus. A Clery timely warning is issued whenever (1) a Clery-specified crime is reported to DPS, a CSA, or OSU is informed by law enforcement; (2) there is a serious or ongoing threat to students and employees because of the crime; and (3) the crime occurred at a Clery-reportable location.
- Who decides
- Public safety officials (DPS dispatch) create and send OSU Alert emergency messages. For crisis communications more broadly, the Vice President for University Relations and Marketing (or delegate) is authorized to mobilize the Crisis Communication Plan in consultation with the Immediate Response Group (IRG), which includes the Provost and Executive Vice President, the VP for Finance and Administration, the VP for University Relations and Marketing, and the General Counsel.
- Timeliness standard
- OSU Alert is an immediate-notification system: in crisis situations it tries all means of contacting each person in the database and uses verification to confirm reach; text/SMS is described as the fastest channel. Timely warnings are issued in a timely manner upon a serious or ongoing threat.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- OSU's three-part timely-warning test (Clery crime reported to DPS/CSA/law enforcement + serious or ongoing threat + Clery-reportable location) covers the timely-warning obligation; OSU Alert serves the emergency-notification function for significant emergencies and dangerous situations. OSU may also send additional safety notifications not required by the Clery Act.
- Testing cadence
- Not stated verbatim in the sources reviewed; OSU references annual reminders of its emergency plans, and the Campus Alert System is exercised through emergency-management training. (Specific test cadence not confirmed.)
- Scope & limits
- OSU Alert is reserved for significant emergencies, dangerous situations, and sudden closures/delays on a university campus. Timely warnings are limited to Clery-specified crimes at Clery-reportable locations that pose a serious or ongoing threat. A user's OSU email is automatically enrolled and cannot be removed; additional contacts are opt-in. The portal is a hosted Rave service contractually barred from selling or sharing contact data.
ChannelsPhone CallEmailSmsWebsite
Analysis
Reading the policy
Oregon State University frames OSU Alert primarily as a multi-modal delivery engine and layers its Clery decision logic on top of it. Per OSU Emergency Management, the Campus Alert System allows public safety officials to create emergency alerts that contain a recorded voice message, an email message, and a text message and send them to the current database of contact information for all employees and students; in crisis situations the system tries all means of contacting each person and uses sophisticated verification so OSU knows it has reached everyone it could. OSU describes text/SMS as the fastest way to receive these messages. The system is used only when a significant emergency, dangerous situation, or sudden campus closure/delay occurs on a university campus.
Decision authority for crisis messaging runs through OSU's crisis communications structure rather than dispatch alone. The Vice President for University Relations and Marketing (or a delegate) is authorized to mobilize the Crisis Communication Plan in consultation with the university's Immediate Response Group (IRG), which is staffed by the chief assistant to the OSU president and includes the Provost and Executive Vice President, the Vice President for Finance and Administration, the Vice President for University Relations and Marketing, and the General Counsel. OSU's Department of Public Safety (DPS) dispatch operates the alert system for the immediate-threat decisions.
On Clery framing, OSU's Safety Notices page sets a clean three-part test for timely warnings: OSU issues a timely warning whenever (1) a crime specified under the Clery Act is reported to DPS, a campus security authority (CSA), or OSU is informed by law enforcement; (2) there is a serious or ongoing threat to students and employees because of the crime; and (3) the crime occurred at a reportable location defined by the Clery Act. OSU adds that it may also send additional safety notifications not required by the Clery Act to increase safety and awareness for the OSU community — a discretionary tier parallel to the mandated warnings.
The OSU Alert portal itself is hosted via AT&T / Rave (the Rave Guardian platform), which OSU states is contractually obligated to protect contact information and not sell or share it. A user's OSU email address is automatically enrolled and cannot be removed, but additional emails and phone/text numbers can be opted in. The OSU-Cascades branch campus operates under the same Campus Alert System. Because oregonstate.edu hosts return HTTP 403 to automated fetching in this environment, the verbatim excerpts below were captured from official OSU Emergency Management and Clery Compliance page text as reproduced in search results and corroborated across multiple independent queries; governance and reach detail is paraphrased.
Takeaways
Key findings
OSU Alert is a Rave-hosted Campus Alert System that pushes a recorded voice call, email, and text to all employees and students, used only for significant emergencies, dangerous situations, or sudden closures/delays.
In a crisis the system tries all contact means and verifies reach; OSU describes text/SMS as the fastest channel.
OSU's Clery timely-warning test is explicitly three-part: a reported Clery crime + a serious or ongoing threat + a Clery-reportable location.
Crisis communications authority runs through the VP for University Relations and Marketing (or delegate), in consultation with the Immediate Response Group; DPS dispatch operates the alert system.
OSU email is auto-enrolled and cannot be removed; additional contacts are opt-in, and the hosted Rave portal is contractually barred from selling or sharing contact data.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
6 documented times OSU’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Official
- OfficialCrisis Communications — University Relations and Marketingcommunications.oregonstate.eduarchived copy
- OfficialCrisis Communications Procedures — University Relations and Marketingcommunications.oregonstate.eduarchived copy
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actosu-alertravepublic-r1oregon
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion