SCAD
Emergency Notifications
SCAD, a Carnegie-classified Master's College and University spanning Savannah, Atlanta, Lacoste, and Hong Kong locations, pushes emergency communication through SCAD Alert to email, phone, and text without delay, with students, faculty, and staff enrolled and updated through the MySCAD portal.
Read the official policyInstitution
Savannah College of Art and Design
Private Masters · GA
~18,550 studentsSCAD Alert
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
SCAD Alert channelsverbatim
SCAD uses the SCAD Alert system to send notifications via text, email and automated phone calls to administrative office phone lines, email accounts and registered cellphones.
- Documents SCAD Alert's reach into administrative office landlines in addition to personal cellphones and email.
Closure/evacuation notification commitmentverbatim
All SCAD students, faculty, and staff will be notified via SCAD Alert by email, phone, and text message in the event of a closure or evacuation.
- States a universal-coverage commitment (all students, faculty, and staff) across three channels for closures and evacuations specifically.
"Without delay" warning standardreconstructed
The warning will be issued via the SCAD Alert System to students, faculty and staff without delay via email, phone and text message.
- Uses "without delay," the Clery emergency-notification standard, rather than the more discretionary "timely" standard used for Clery timely warnings.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- SCAD Alert is used for closures, evacuations, and other campus emergencies; the university commits to notification without delay via email, phone, and text message once a warning decision is made.
- Who decides
- A specific named decision-making office or official was not confirmed from the public sources reviewed; SCAD Alert is administered as a university-wide system through the MySCAD portal.
- Timeliness standard
- SCAD states that warnings are issued via the SCAD Alert System without delay via email, phone and text message, language that mirrors the Clery Act's "without delay" emergency-notification standard.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- SCAD's Annual Security and Fire Safety Report situates SCAD Alert within its Clery Act obligations, including a Timely Warning commitment for Clery-reportable crimes considered a serious or continuing threat to students and employees.
- Testing cadence
- A stated testing cadence was not found in the public sources reviewed.
- Scope & limits
- SCAD Alert reaches registered cellphones, personal email accounts, and administrative office phone lines; students are asked to refresh their MySCAD contact information at the start of each academic year and after any address or phone change.
ChannelsSmsEmailPhone Call
Analysis
Reading the policy
SCAD is unusual among art-and-design schools in this archive for its scale and academic breadth: roughly 18,550 total students across undergraduate and graduate programs, with Carnegie classifying it a Master's College and University on the strength of nearly 3,000 graduate students and 29 graduate-level programs, alongside its BFA-heavy undergraduate population. SCAD's Emergency Notifications page describes SCAD Alert as the university's branded system, delivering notifications via text, email and automated phone call to administrative office phone lines, email accounts and registered cellphones, a design that deliberately reaches office landlines as well as personal devices.
SCAD frames its multi-campus emergency-notification standard around speed: the university's closures-and-evacuation-procedures page commits that all SCAD students, faculty, and staff will be notified via SCAD Alert by email, phone, and text message in the event of a closure or evacuation, and separately that a warning will be issued via the SCAD Alert System to students, faculty and staff without delay via email, phone and text message, language that tracks the Clery Act's own "without delay" emergency-notification standard rather than the more discretionary "timely" standard used for Clery timely warnings.
Registration runs through the university's own student information system rather than a separate opt-in portal: students, faculty and staff are encouraged to enroll in the SCAD Alert Emergency Contact System via MySCAD, and the university explicitly asks students to update their personal contact info in MySCAD at the beginning of each academic year, as well as after any mid-year change of address or phone number, to ensure timely notification in the event of an emergency, a maintenance-driven approach that puts the update burden on individuals but ties it to an existing account the university already requires them to use.
SCAD's Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, issued October 1, 2025, situates SCAD Alert within the university's broader Clery Act compliance, including a Timely Warning commitment for Clery-reportable crimes that SCAD considers a serious or continuing threat to students and employees.
Takeaways
Key findings
SCAD Alert reaches administrative office landlines in addition to personal cellphones and email, an unusual design choice among this archive's policies.
SCAD's stated standard for closures/evacuations uses "without delay" language, tracking the Clery Act's emergency-notification (not timely-warning) standard.
Registration and updates run through MySCAD, the university's existing student/employee portal, rather than a separate opt-in system.
As a Carnegie Master's College and University with nearly 3,000 graduate students, SCAD fills a genuine gap in this archive's private-masters institution coverage.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
1 documented time SCAD’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- SourceSavannah College of Art and Design - Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Educationcarnegieclassifications.acenet.eduarchived copy
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actprivate-mastersgeorgiaart-and-designscad-alert
Added 2026-07-20Updated 2026-07-20Via ingestion