Tulane
TU Alerts
TU Alerts is Tulane University's emergency mass-notification system, delivered via Everbridge, which sends critical voice, email, and text messages to students, faculty, and staff in the event of an emergency or impending threat; the Tulane University Police Department separately issues Clery Timely Warnings (Crime Alerts) for Clery Act crimes posing a serious or continuing threat.
Read the official policyInstitution
Tulane University
Private R1 · LA
~15,000 studentsTU Alert (Everbridge)
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
TU Alert trigger and channelsverbatim
In the event of an emergency or impending threat, Tulane will send critical voice, email and text messages to students, faculty and staff at on-file telephone numbers and email addresses.
- — States the three core channels (voice, email, text) and ties delivery to on-file contact data.
Automatic enrollmentverbatim
Students, faculty and staff are automatically enrolled as a recipient of TU Alerts through Everbridge.
- — Opt-out rather than opt-in model: the whole community is enrolled by default via the Everbridge platform.
Emergency-notification definition (ASR)reconstructed
Emergency Notifications are used to notify the campus community when a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students, faculty, staff or visitors is occurring on or near any of our campuses.
- — Reconstructed from quoted ASR language surfaced in search; the official .edu PDF host 403-blocks direct fetch, so marked unconfirmed pending byte-for-byte verification.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- TU Alerts are sent in the event of an emergency or impending threat. Per Tulane's ASR, emergency notifications are used when a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students, faculty, staff, or visitors is occurring on or near any campus. Timely Warnings (Crime Alerts) are issued for Clery Act crimes posing a serious or continuing threat.
- Who decides
- Tulane (via the Office of Emergency Preparedness & Response and TUPD) sends TU Alerts through Everbridge; the Chief of Police or their designee issues Clery Timely Warnings / Crime Alerts.
- Timeliness standard
- Emergency notifications are issued without undue delay; they may be delayed only where issuing the notification would, in the professional judgment of responsible authorities, compromise efforts to assist a victim or to contain, respond to, or otherwise mitigate the emergency — and are then issued immediately once that situation is addressed. Timely Warnings are distributed as soon as pertinent information is available.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- Two-track Clery framework: TU Alerts / emergency notifications for significant emergencies or dangerous situations posing an immediate threat, and separate Timely Warnings (Crime Alerts) for Clery Act crimes representing a serious or continuing threat.
- Testing cadence
- The emergency-notification system, including outdoor warning sirens, is tested university-wide quarterly by the Office of Emergency Preparedness & Response in cooperation with TUPD, with advance email notice to the community.
- Scope & limits
- TU Alerts reach students, faculty, and staff at on-file telephone numbers and email addresses; recipients must keep contact data current (students via Gibson). The Everbridge app adds check-in and panic-button safety features tied to TUPD dispatch.
ChannelsPhone CallEmailSmsPush NotificationDesktop PopupSirenWebsiteTwitter X
Analysis
Reading the policy
TU Alerts is Tulane's emergency notification system, built on the Everbridge mass-communications platform that Tulane adopted in 2019. The trigger and channel set are stated plainly: "In the event of an emergency or impending threat, Tulane will send critical voice, email and text messages to students, faculty and staff at on-file telephone numbers and email addresses." Enrollment is automatic — students, faculty, and staff are automatically enrolled as recipients of TU Alerts through Everbridge — and the University urges members to keep contact data current (students via Gibson) so that calls, emails, and texts reach the right numbers.
Beyond the core voice/email/text channels, Tulane layers on the Everbridge mobile app, which delivers emergency push notifications and adds a campus-safety toolkit: a safe-walk "check-in" feature that dispatches the Tulane University Police Department to a student's last known location if a scheduled check-in is missed, and a panic button that sends an SOS request to TUPD. Tulane also deploys ALERTUS desktop/laptop notifications and outdoor warning sirens, broadening reach across the New Orleans campuses.
On the Clery side, Tulane's Clery Act program distinguishes emergency notifications from Timely Warnings. Per Tulane's Annual Security & Fire Safety Report, emergency notifications are used "to notify the campus community when a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students, faculty, staff or visitors is occurring on or near any of our campuses," and may be delayed only where, in the professional judgment of responsible authorities, issuing the notification would compromise efforts to assist a victim or to contain, respond to, or otherwise mitigate the emergency — the standard Clery 'compromise efforts' exception. Timely Warnings ("Crime Alerts") are issued by the Chief of Police or designee for Clery Act crimes occurring on Clery geography that are reported to a campus security authority or law enforcement and considered to represent a serious or continuing threat, distributed as soon as pertinent information is available while withholding victims' names, and disseminated through email, SMS, and other media.
The University's Office of Emergency Preparedness & Response tests the emergency-notification system, including the outdoor warning sirens, on a quarterly schedule in cooperation with TUPD, with advance email notice to the community and neighbors (typically one week and three days before each test). Scope is bounded by the immediate-threat trigger for emergency notifications and the serious-or-continuing-threat standard for Timely Warnings.
Takeaways
Key findings
TU Alerts run on Everbridge (adopted 2019) and send critical voice, email, and text messages in the event of an emergency or impending threat.
Students, faculty, and staff are automatically enrolled through Everbridge; the free Everbridge app adds emergency push alerts plus check-in and panic-button features tied to TUPD dispatch.
Tulane also deploys ALERTUS desktop/laptop notifications and outdoor warning sirens to broaden reach.
Per the ASR, emergency notifications may be delayed only where issuing would compromise efforts to assist a victim or contain/mitigate the emergency — the standard Clery exception.
TUPD's Chief of Police or designee issues Timely Warnings (Crime Alerts) for Clery Act crimes posing a serious or continuing threat; the system, including sirens, is tested quarterly.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
12 documented times Tulane’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
+ 4 more in the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- OfficialEmergency Communications | Tulane Emergency Preparedness & Responseemergencyprep.tulane.eduarchived copy
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningcleryeverbridgelouisianaprivate-r1
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion