SJSU
SJSU Emergency Notification (Alert SJSU) and Timely Warning Policy (2025 Annual Security Report)
Alert SJSU is San José State University's University Police-run emergency-notification system, an opt-out program that reaches all enrolled students and active employees by email, text message, and indoor speaker phones; its Clery criteria, decision authority, and testing cadence are set out in the SJSU 2025 Annual Security Report.
Read the official policyInstitution
San José State University
Public R2 · CA
~37,661 studentsAlert SJSU
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Decision authority transmits without delayverbatim
The Chief of Police and/or the Clery Director (or their management designees) will, without delay and taking into account the safety of the community, transmit the emergency notification unless doing so would delay the ability to mitigate and/or contain the emergency, including the ability to provide immediate, life saving measures.
- — Names the decision authority (Chief of Police and/or Clery Director) and embeds the Clery 'without delay' obligation plus the containment/life-saving exception.
At-least-annual testing requirementverbatim
Testing of the Emergency Notification System and evacuation will be done at least once annually. The tests may be announced or unannounced.
- — States the minimum testing cadence (at least once annually) and that tests may be announced or unannounced.
Test documentation requirementsverbatim
Each test will be documented to include a description of the exercise, the date of the test, the start and end times of the test, and whether the test was announced or unannounced.
- — Mirrors the Clery test-documentation requirement (description, date, times, announced/unannounced) verbatim.
Opt-out enrollmentverbatim
Alert SJSU is an "opt out" program for all currently-enrolled students and active employees, meaning all students and employees are automatically enrolled.
- — Confirms automatic (opt-out) enrollment of all currently-enrolled students and active employees.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- Alert SJSU notifies students, staff, and faculty of emergency events or conditions that threaten the health and safety of the campus community. Under the Clery Act, an emergency notification is issued upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees on campus; a separate timely warning is issued for Clery crimes posing a serious or continuing threat.
- Who decides
- The Chief of Police and/or the Clery Director (or their management designees) prepare the content of the notification, determine which members of the campus community are threatened and need to be notified, and transmit the emergency notification.
- Timeliness standard
- The Chief of Police and/or the Clery Director (or their management designees) will, without delay and taking into account the safety of the community, transmit the emergency notification unless doing so would delay the ability to mitigate and/or contain the emergency, including the ability to provide immediate, life saving measures.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- Emergency notifications (Alert SJSU) and timely warnings (serious or continuing threat from Clery crimes) are handled as distinct Clery obligations, both documented in the Clery Act-mandated Annual Security Report.
- Testing cadence
- Testing of the Emergency Notification System and evacuation is done at least once annually; tests may be announced or unannounced, must contain drills/exercises and follow-through, and each test is documented (description, date, start/end times, announced or unannounced).
- Scope & limits
- Notification may be withheld if transmitting it would delay the ability to mitigate and/or contain the emergency, including providing immediate, life-saving measures. The Chief of Police/Clery Director determine which segment of the community is threatened and needs to be notified rather than always notifying everyone. Enrollment is automatic (opt-out) for currently-enrolled students and active employees based on contact data in OneSJSU.
ChannelsEmailSmsPa System
Analysis
Reading the policy
San José State University delivers Clery emergency notifications through Alert SJSU, a program administered by the University Police Department to quickly disseminate emergency information to the campus community during critical incidents. Alert SJSU is an opt-out program for all currently-enrolled students and active employees, meaning everyone is automatically enrolled based on the phone number and email address maintained in OneSJSU/PeopleSoft. The system reaches the community primarily through email, text messages, and indoor speaker phones; SJSU's indoor public-address system uses speaker telephones in offices and instructional spaces, parking garages, and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.
The Clery framework behind Alert SJSU is laid out in the SJSU 2025 Annual Security Report. SJSU follows the standard Clery emergency-notification trigger — confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees on campus. Per the ASR, 'the Chief of Police and/or the Clery Director (or their management designees) will, without delay and taking into account the safety of the community, transmit the emergency notification unless doing so would delay the ability to mitigate and/or contain the emergency, including the ability to provide immediate, life saving measures.' This vests both content preparation and the timeliness obligation in named roles while preserving the Clery containment exception.
SJSU keeps emergency notifications distinct from Clery timely warnings, the latter issued for Clery crimes posing a serious or continuing threat to the campus community. Both obligations are documented in the Annual Security Report, which the university describes as the Clery Act-mandated report outlining crime-reporting, safety, and security policies.
For testing, the ASR is explicit and detailed: 'Testing of the Emergency Notification System and evacuation will be done at least once annually. The tests may be announced or unannounced.' It further specifies that tests must be scheduled, contain drills, exercises, and appropriate follow-through activities, be designed for assessment and evaluation of emergency plans and capabilities, and be documented with a description, date, start/end times, and whether the test was announced or unannounced. Because SJSU's official .edu host returns HTTP 403 to automated fetching in this environment, the verbatim excerpts below were captured from official SJSU page and ASR text as reproduced in search results and corroborated across multiple independent queries; remaining detail is paraphrased.
Takeaways
Key findings
Alert SJSU is run by the SJSU University Police Department and reaches students, staff, and faculty primarily by email, text message, and indoor speaker phones (a campus-wide public-address system).
Enrollment is opt-out: all currently-enrolled students and active employees are automatically enrolled based on the contact data in OneSJSU/PeopleSoft.
The Chief of Police and/or the Clery Director (or designees) prepare the content, determine the threatened segment of the community, and transmit the notification 'without delay' subject to the containment/life-saving exception.
Emergency notifications and timely warnings are distinct Clery obligations, both documented in the Clery Act-mandated Annual Security Report.
Testing of the Emergency Notification System and evacuation is done at least once annually (announced or unannounced), with each test documented by description, date, start/end times, and announced/unannounced status.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
3 documented times SJSU’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Official
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actalert-sjsupublic-r2californiacsu
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion