TCC
TCC Alerts Emergency Notification Policy (Annual Security Report)
Tidewater Community College delivers emergency notifications through TCC Alerts, described in its Annual Security Report as a closed, opt-out emergency-notification service for faculty, staff and students that can send messages within minutes, with sign-up handled through the college's Everbridge portal.
Read the official policy~16,884 studentsTCC Alerts (Rave / Everbridge)
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
ASR 'closed, opt-out' definition and timingnot yet verified against the source
The policy addresses this topic; its exact wording has not yet been verified against the source, so no text is quoted here. Open the official policy to read it.
TCC — 2024 Annual Security Report (large PDF; text from search index)Multi-channel delivery listnot yet verified against the source
The policy addresses this topic; its exact wording has not yet been verified against the source, so no text is quoted here. Open the official policy to read it.
TCC — TCC Alerts page (host blocked automated fetch; text from search index)Purpose / instruction framingnot yet verified against the source
The policy addresses this topic; its exact wording has not yet been verified against the source, so no text is quoted here. Open the official policy to read it.
TCC — TCC Alerts page (host blocked automated fetch; text from search index)At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- TCC sends TCC Alerts for emergencies, severe weather events, or other time-sensitive situations impacting the college community — including fires, bomb threats, severe weather and college closures — within minutes of an incident. The exact published Clery activation-threshold wording was not confirmed verbatim in this review.
- Who decides
- TCC officials in the Department of Public Safety send TCC Alerts notifications. The specific position authorized to confirm and trigger an alert was not confirmed verbatim in this review (tcc.edu blocked automated fetching and the ASR is a large PDF).
- Timeliness standard
- TCC's Annual Security Report states TCC Alerts can be used to send emergency messages within minutes of the occurrence of an incident — consistent with the Clery expectation of prompt notification. A specific 'without delay / upon confirmation' clause was not confirmed verbatim in this review.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- TCC documents TCC Alerts as its emergency-notification service in its Annual Security Report, with timely-warning crime alerts handled as part of the college's broader Clery program by the Department of Public Safety; the precise published timely-warning criteria text was not confirmed verbatim in this review.
- Testing cadence
- TCC instructs members to keep contact information current in the Student Information System (SIS) so notifications reach them; the exact published periodic test cadence for TCC Alerts was not confirmed verbatim in this review.
- Scope & limits
- TCC Alerts is a closed, opt-out system — faculty, staff and students are enrolled by default and must affirmatively unsubscribe — so coverage is broad, but reach to specific phones/emails depends on contact data kept current in SIS. The system also reaches assigned office phones and powered-on college monitors (digital signage), and parents/family members may sign up via the public portal.
ChannelsSmsEmailPhone CallDigital SignagePush Notification
Analysis
Reading the policy
Tidewater Community College (TCC), one of Virginia's largest community colleges, serving the South Hampton Roads region across multiple campuses, runs its emergency-notification function under the brand TCC Alerts. The underlying platform is the Rave/Everbridge emergency-notification system: TCC's public sign-up routes through an Everbridge member portal, and the platform — historically marketed as Rave Mobile Safety — is now an Everbridge product, so college materials referring to both 'RAVE' and 'Everbridge' describe the same vendor.
TCC's 2024 Annual Security Report frames TCC Alerts as a 'closed, opt-out' service available to faculty, staff and students that 'can be used to send emergency messages within minutes of the occurrence of an incident.' The closed/opt-out design means the college population is enrolled by default and members must affirmatively unsubscribe, which closes the coverage gap created by purely opt-in keyword systems. TCC instructs members to keep contact information current in the Student Information System (SIS) so messages reach the right phone numbers and email addresses.
The channel set is unusually broad for a community college. TCC officials can send notifications to subscribed phone numbers, email addresses, assigned college office phones, and college monitors (digital signage) that are turned on, and the college operates a companion TCC Safe app through which crime and suspicious activity can be reported. The alerts are positioned as recipients' 'personal connection to real-time updates, instructions on where to go, what to do, or what not to do, who to contact and other important information' for situations including fires, bomb threats, severe weather and college closures.
TCC's .edu host returned HTTP 403 to direct automated fetching and the ASR is a large PDF, so the excerpts below were captured from indexed search snippets of the official TCC Alerts page and the 2024 ASR. The 'closed, opt-out' / 'within minutes' ASR language and the multi-channel delivery description appeared consistently across multiple retrievals but, absent a byte-for-byte live fetch, are marked isVerbatimConfirmed:false; confidence is set to medium. The exact named decision authority and the published periodic test cadence were not confirmable in this review, and because two official descriptions label the platform both 'RAVE' and 'Everbridge,' the alert-system name is recorded as Rave/Everbridge.
Takeaways
Key findings
TCC's emergency-notification system is TCC Alerts, built on the Rave/Everbridge platform (Rave is now an Everbridge product), with public sign-up through an everbridge.net portal.
The ASR describes TCC Alerts as a closed, opt-out service for faculty, staff and students that can send messages within minutes of an incident.
The channel set is broad for a community college — subscribed phones, email, assigned office phones and powered-on college monitors (digital signage), plus a companion TCC Safe reporting app.
Members must keep contact information current in the Student Information System (SIS); parents and family members may also sign up.
tcc.edu blocked automated fetching and the ASR is a large PDF, so excerpts are from indexed snippets and marked reconstructed; the platform is labeled both 'RAVE' and 'Everbridge' in official materials, so the brand is recorded as Rave/Everbridge and confidence is medium.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
1 documented time TCC’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Official
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningcommunity-collegevirginiaeverbridgeraveclery
Added 2026-06-22Updated 2026-09-20Via ingestion