Stanford
AlertSU — Stanford Emergency Notification System (AlertSU FAQs / Clery Act)
Stanford's AlertSU is activated when there is a clear and present life-safety threat to the campus community requiring immediate action, pushing messages over a mass-notification system (SMS, email, phone/VoIP) and, in extreme cases, seven outdoor warning sirens; separate Clery timely warnings are issued by the Chief of Police or a designated senior official.
Read the official policyInstitution
Stanford University
Private R1 · CA
~17,000 studentsAlertSU
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
AlertSU activation thresholdverbatim
This system is used when there is a clear and present life safety threat to the campus community that requires immediate action by all campus community members.
- — Sets a high, action-oriented bar ('clear and present life safety threat ... immediate action by all') distinct from the lower Clery timely-warning standard.
Outdoor Warning System — seven sirensverbatim
If you are outside, you should expect to hear an audible tone for approximately 30 seconds, followed by a verbal message from each of the 7 sirens at various campus locations.
- — Specifies the siren behavior (≈30-second tone then voice) and confirms the seven-siren count; the sirens target people outdoors as an escalatory layer beyond SMS/email/phone.
No fixed timely-warning clockverbatim
There is no specific time frame that determines how recent an incident must be to warrant a Timely Warning, or how quickly the resulting AlertSU message must be sent.
- — Stanford explicitly declines to set a numeric deadline for timely warnings, instead tying issuance to a senior-official threat judgment.
Sex-offense timely-warning factorsverbatim
Factors that will be considered when making this decision include: the level of force and violence used to commit the crime; the potential use of a drug to commit the crime; and the existence of multiple crimes of a similar nature occurring in close proximity, either in time or location.
- — Spells out the case-by-case test for sex-offense timely warnings (force/violence, drug-facilitation, clustering), a sensitive Clery sub-category.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- AlertSU is activated when there is a clear and present life-safety threat to the campus community that requires immediate action by all campus community members. A separate Clery timely warning is issued when Clery-specified crimes occur on or near campus and a senior official determines the situation poses an immediate or ongoing threat.
- Who decides
- A defined roster of authorized senior officials, including the President and Provost (or designee), General Counsel, the Chief of the Department of Public Safety (or on-scene SUDPS Incident Commander/designee), the AVP for Environmental Health & Safety, VP for Public Affairs, the university Emergency Manager, the VP of University Communications (or designee), the Executive Director of UIT Services, and the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community. For Clery timely warnings, the Chief of Police or her designee or other senior University official.
- Timeliness standard
- AlertSU is for situations 'that require immediate action'; for timely warnings, Stanford states there is no specific time frame for how recent an incident must be or how quickly the AlertSU message must be sent, with delays most commonly caused by late reporting to DPS.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- Distinguishes emergency notifications (AlertSU, for an immediate clear-and-present life-safety threat) from Clery timely warnings (for Clery-specified crimes posing an immediate or ongoing threat); sex-offense timely warnings are decided case-by-case on force/violence, possible drug use, and clustering of similar crimes.
- Testing cadence
- A campus-wide AlertSU test is conducted at least once each academic year (recent tests held around noon in February and October), sending SMS, email, and phone messages and optionally activating the outdoor warning sirens.
- Scope & limits
- The outdoor sirens are reserved for extreme instances and are intended to reach people outdoors (≈30-second tone plus a verbal message from each of seven sirens). The mass-notification system reaches only registered community members whose contact info is current in Axess/StanfordYou (allow up to 24 hours for changes). Timely-warning issuance is discretionary and gated on a senior-official threat determination.
ChannelsSmsEmailPhone CallSirenPa System
Analysis
Reading the policy
Stanford's AlertSU is described as the university's emergency-notification strategy for communicating time-sensitive information during an emergency event affecting campus. The activation threshold is narrow and explicit: the system is used 'when there is a clear and present life safety threat to the campus community that requires immediate action by all campus community members.' That phrasing sets a higher bar than a generic 'serious threat' and is paired with the expectation of immediate, all-community action.
AlertSU is layered. The mass-notification system sends alerts to all registered students, faculty, and staff via SMS text message, email, and phone (including VoIP speaker phones); the Outdoor Warning System is a separate, escalatory layer composed of seven sirens positioned throughout main campus that emit alert tones and verbal instruction intended to reach people who are outdoors. If outside, a person should expect an audible tone for approximately 30 seconds followed by a verbal message from each of the seven sirens. Recipients are expected to keep their contact information current in Axess (students) or StanfordYou (staff/faculty), with up to 24 hours for changes to propagate.
On Clery framing, Stanford keeps emergency notifications (AlertSU) conceptually distinct from timely warnings. The Clery Act guidance explains that a federal law requires the university to issue timely warnings whenever Clery-specified crimes occur on campus or in a surrounding area and 'the Chief of Police or her designee or other senior level University official has determined that the situation poses an immediate or ongoing threat to the community.' Stanford is candid that 'There is no specific time frame that determines how recent an incident must be to warrant a Timely Warning, or how quickly the resulting AlertSU message must be sent,' and that the most common cause of delay is a crime not being reported promptly to DPS. For sex offenses, the decision is explicitly case-by-case, weighing the level of force/violence used, the potential use of a drug to commit the crime, and the existence of multiple similar crimes occurring in close proximity in time or location.
Authority to activate is held by a defined roster of senior officials — including the President and Provost (or designee), the General Counsel, the Chief of the Department of Public Safety (or the on-scene SUDPS Incident Commander or designee), the Associate Vice Provost for Environmental Health & Safety, the Vice President for Public Affairs, the university Emergency Manager, the Vice President of University Communications (or designee), the Executive Director of UIT Services, and the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community. Testing is conducted as a campus-wide AlertSU test at least once each academic year (recent tests have run around noon in February and October), during which a message goes to every community member by SMS, email, and phone, and the outdoor warning system may be activated to verify functionality and audio clarity. Because the official police.stanford.edu pages return HTTP 403 to automated fetching in this environment, the verbatim excerpts below were captured from the official AlertSU FAQ and Clery Act page text as reproduced in search results and corroborated across multiple independent queries; remaining detail is paraphrased.
Takeaways
Key findings
AlertSU's activation bar is a 'clear and present life safety threat to the campus community that requires immediate action by all campus community members' — narrower than a generic serious-threat standard.
Delivery is layered: a mass-notification system (SMS, email, phone/VoIP to all registered community members) plus an escalatory Outdoor Warning System of seven main-campus sirens (≈30-second tone then a verbal message).
Authority to activate is vested in a broad named roster of senior officials; Clery timely warnings are issued by the Chief of Police or her designee or another senior University official.
Stanford explicitly states there is no fixed time frame for how recent an incident must be or how fast an AlertSU timely-warning message must go out; late reporting to DPS is the most common cause of delay.
AlertSU is tested campus-wide at least once each academic year (recent tests around noon in February and October), exercising SMS/email/phone and optionally the sirens.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
13 documented times Stanford’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
+ 5 more in the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Official
- Official
- News
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actalertsusirensprivate-r1california
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion