SNHU
SNHU Alerts / Annual Security and Fire Safety Report
Southern New Hampshire University's roughly 300-acre Manchester campus runs emergency communications through SNHU Alerts, an optional Omnilert-powered text and email service layered on top of the university's Crisis Management Team and its Annual Security and Fire Safety Report Clery disclosures, which name the Director of Public Safety as the designated Clery Officer who reviews incoming reports and assesses the need to issue a timely warning.
Read the official policyInstitution
Southern New Hampshire University
Private Masters · NH
~2,615 studentsSNHU Alerts
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
What SNHU Alerts isverbatim
SNHU Alerts is an optional emergency alert text messaging service for students, faculty and staff.
- Defines SNHU Alerts as an opt-in text messaging product, distinct from the mandatory Clery timely-warning process.
Clery Officer designationverbatim
The Director of Public Safety is the designated Clery Officer within Public Safety who reviews reports as they come in and assesses the need to issue a timely warning.
- Names the specific decision-authority role (Director of Public Safety, as Clery Officer) for timely-warning determinations.
Notification implementation authorityverbatim
The notification process will be implemented at the sole direction of the V.P. of Student Affairs, the Assistant Vice President Student Affairs and Public Safety, or the Assistant Vice President Student Affairs and Public Safety's designee to include a Public Safety Supervisor or Senior Officer.
- Establishes a three-deep chain of command (VP of Student Affairs down to a Public Safety Supervisor/Senior Officer designee) authorized to trigger notification.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- SNHU Alerts is used to send alerts about crisis situations affecting the SNHU community as well as closings, cancellations, or delays of office hours or classes. Separately, under Clery, a timely warning is assessed whenever a report comes in that the Director of Public Safety, as designated Clery Officer, determines may represent a serious or continuing threat.
- Who decides
- The Director of Public Safety is the designated Clery Officer within Public Safety who reviews reports and assesses the need to issue a timely warning; the notification process is implemented at the sole direction of the V.P. of Student Affairs, the Assistant Vice President Student Affairs and Public Safety, or that AVP's designee (a Public Safety Supervisor or Senior Officer). A separate Crisis Management Team, whose policy group is led by the Dean of Students, assesses whether to activate for extraordinary events.
- Timeliness standard
- In an emergency on or near campus that may affect the safety or well-being of the university community, timely and pertinent information will be provided to the group concerned. A specific numeric minutes-based standard was not reproduced verbatim in the sources reviewed.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- SNHU's Annual Security and Fire Safety Report names the Director of Public Safety as the designated Clery Officer responsible for timely-warning determinations, distinct from the optional SNHU Alerts subscription product used for day-to-day crisis and closure messaging.
- Testing cadence
- Not specified in the sources reviewed; SNHU Alerts is described as an optional subscription service rather than a system with a published fixed test calendar.
- Scope & limits
- SNHU Alerts is opt-in (each subscriber registers up to two cell numbers and two email addresses through Omnilert); the on-campus program itself is comparatively small (roughly 2,600 undergraduates living or studying on the Manchester campus) relative to SNHU's much larger online enrollment, which is not the subject of this campus-based alerting system.
ChannelsSmsEmailWebsite
Analysis
Reading the policy
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is best known nationally for its large online population, but its roughly 300-acre residential campus along the Merrimack River in Manchester, New Hampshire, maintains its own Clery-covered emergency notification apparatus. The university's public safety pages describe SNHU Alerts as an optional emergency alert text messaging service for students, faculty and staff, used to send alerts about crisis situations affecting the SNHU community as well as closings, cancellations, or delays of office hours or classes. Registration and delivery run through Omnilert, third-party software SNHU uses to provide and manage text and email alert messages; a subscriber can register for SNHU Alerts to have text messages sent to up to two cell phone numbers and two email addresses, through the university's Omnilert-hosted subscriber portal.
SNHU's Annual Security and Fire Safety Report lays out the Clery decision chain: the Director of Public Safety is the designated Clery Officer within Public Safety who reviews reports as they come in and assesses the need to issue a timely warning, and the notification process will be implemented at the sole direction of the V.P. of Student Affairs, the Assistant Vice President Student Affairs and Public Safety, or the Assistant Vice President Student Affairs and Public Safety's designee to include a Public Safety Supervisor or Senior Officer. That report also describes the university's broader crisis apparatus: in an emergency on or near campus that may affect the safety or well-being of the university community, timely and pertinent information will be provided to the group concerned, released by special 'Security Alerts,' voice mail, or in meetings depending on the situation, and a Crisis Management Team, whose policy group is led by the Dean of Students and includes representatives from Public Safety, Facilities, Residence Life, and Marketing/Communications, assesses extraordinary events immediately to determine whether to activate the team.
Because snhu.edu hosts return HTTP 403 to automated fetching in this environment, the language above was captured from SNHU's public safety and Annual Security Report pages as reproduced consistently across multiple independent search queries, and is treated as verbatim on that basis; a specific published system-wide testing calendar (e.g., a fixed per-semester test date) was not found in the material reviewed and is left unstated rather than invented.
Takeaways
Key findings
SNHU Alerts is an optional Omnilert-powered text/email service layered on top of SNHU's mandatory Clery notification process.
The Director of Public Safety is the designated Clery Officer who reviews reports and decides on timely warnings.
Notification implementation runs through a named chain: VP of Student Affairs, then the Assistant VP Student Affairs and Public Safety, then that AVP's designee.
A separate Crisis Management Team, led by the Dean of Students' policy group, assesses whether to activate for extraordinary disastrous events.
SNHU's residential Manchester campus (roughly 2,600 undergraduates) is far smaller than its online population, and this alert system is scoped to the physical campus.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Clery ASR
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actsnhu-alertsomnilertprivate-mastersnew-hampshire
Added 2026-07-20Updated 2026-07-20Via ingestion