USMMA
Annual Security and Fire Safety Report 2023-2024
The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point may send emergency alerts by text message or email instructing shelter-in-place for hazards such as chemical, biological or radiological contamination and severe weather, and, unusually among the five federal service academies, publishes a Clery-style Annual Security and Fire Safety Report and participates in Title IV federal student aid (Pell Grants and Direct Loans); USMMA is administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration rather than the Department of Defense, which distinguishes its funding and oversight structure from the four DoD service academies.
Read the official policyInstitution
United States Merchant Marine Academy
Military · NY
~1,000 studentsUSMMA Emergency Alert
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Shelter-in-place alert descriptionreconstructed
The Academy may send emergency alerts via text message or email instructing people to shelter in place, and in these cases, people should immediately enter the nearest building if they are not already indoors.
- — Describes the two-channel (text/email) alert method and the default shelter-in-place instruction for anyone outdoors at the time of an alert.
In-class guidancereconstructed
Faculty, staff, and midshipmen members who are in class should remain in their classroom.
- — Extends the shelter-in-place instruction specifically to the classroom setting, naming all three campus populations, faculty, staff and midshipmen, together.
Department of Public Safety rolereconstructed
The USMMA Department of Public Safety is a full-service law enforcement agency responsible for campus safety and security.
- — Establishes Public Safety, not a garrison-style military directorate, as the campus's designated law-enforcement authority, consistent with USMMA's Department of Transportation administration.
Mutual-aid partnersreconstructed
mutual-aid agreements with multiple agencies in both Great Neck and Nassau County, including the Kings Point Police Department, Great Neck Alert Fire Department (fire and rescue coverage), Great Neck Vigilant Fire Department (EMS coverage), and the Nassau County Police Department, as well as investigative support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- — Lists the specific municipal and federal partners USMMA's small campus relies on for fire, EMS, police and investigative support, distinct from the self-contained garrison model at the DoD service academies.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- USMMA's public emergency guidance ties shelter-in-place alerts to atmospheric contamination and severe weather, explicitly including chemical, biological or radiological hazards; a broader Clery-style 'significant emergency or dangerous situation' activation threshold was not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed.
- Who decides
- The USMMA Department of Public Safety, described as a full-service law enforcement agency, is the operational body responsible for campus safety and security; a single named notification-approval official was not identified in the public sources reviewed.
- Timeliness standard
- No specific minutes-based timeliness standard was found in the public sources reviewed; alerts are described as arriving by text message or email with immediate shelter-in-place instructions.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- USMMA is one of the five federal service academies generally reported as exempt from the Clery Act and Title IX, yet it is the only one of the five this archive found publishing a document titled an Annual Security and Fire Safety Report and reported to participate in Title IV federal student aid; that combination is presented here as an observed, sourced fact rather than a fully resolved legal conclusion.
- Testing cadence
- A published USMMA-specific alert-system testing cadence was not found in the public sources reviewed.
- Scope & limits
- Shelter-in-place guidance in USMMA's Emergency Quick Reference Guide is scoped to atmospheric contamination, chemical/biological/radiological hazards and severe weather; the guide instructs those not already indoors to enter the nearest building and those in class to remain in the classroom, implying alert reach is expected to cover the campus population currently on the Kings Point grounds.
ChannelsSmsEmail
Analysis
Reading the policy
USMMA occupies an unusual position among the five federal service academies. Public reporting on service-academy exemptions from Clery and Title IX names all five academies as exempt, yet USMMA is the only one of the five that this archive found publishing a document explicitly titled an Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, in the same document family civilian Title-IV colleges file to satisfy the Clery Act. Search results also indicate USMMA participates in Title IV programs for Pell Grants and Direct Loans (Subsidized, Unsubsidized and Parent PLUS), unlike its DoD sister academies, whose fully-funded appointments do not route through Title IV aid in the same way. USMMA is also organizationally distinct: it is administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration (MARAD), not the Department of Defense, which may explain why its public-safety office chose Clery-formatted reporting even if the underlying legal exemption applies identically on paper. This archive presents that distinction as an observed fact rather than a settled legal conclusion, since the precise statutory mechanism was not independently confirmed.
On the ground, USMMA's Department of Public Safety describes itself as a full-service law enforcement agency responsible for campus safety and security, backed by mutual-aid agreements with the Kings Point Police Department, the Great Neck Alert Fire Department (fire and rescue coverage), the Great Neck Vigilant Fire Department (EMS coverage), the Nassau County Police Department, and investigative support from the FBI, a reflection of the Academy's small (roughly 1,000-midshipman) Long Island campus relying on surrounding municipal and federal partners rather than an isolated installation force.
USMMA's Emergency Quick Reference Guide describes the Academy sending emergency alerts by text message or email instructing the community to shelter in place, with the guidance that anyone not already indoors should immediately enter the nearest building, and that faculty, staff and midshipmen already in class should remain in their classroom. Shelter-in-place is specifically tied to threats posed by atmospheric contamination and severe weather, a category the guide extends to accidents or attacks involving chemical, biological or radiological hazards, language that reflects the maritime-industrial character of the Kings Point campus (adjacent to Long Island Sound shipping and heavy equipment used in the Academy's marine-engineering programs) as much as a generic active-threat scenario.
Because usmma.edu returns HTTP 403 to automated fetching in this environment, the excerpts below were reconstructed from official USMMA page and PDF text as reproduced in search-engine indexing and corroborated across multiple independent queries, and are marked accordingly.
Takeaways
Key findings
USMMA is the only one of the five federal service academies this archive found publishing a document titled an Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, in the Clery-report format used by civilian Title-IV colleges.
USMMA is administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration, not the Department of Defense, and is reported to participate in Title IV Pell Grant and Direct Loan programs, unlike its DoD sister academies.
Emergency alerts go out by text message or email with shelter-in-place instructions tied specifically to atmospheric contamination, chemical/biological/radiological hazards and severe weather.
The USMMA Department of Public Safety is described as a full-service law enforcement agency and relies on mutual-aid agreements with Kings Point PD, two Great Neck fire departments, Nassau County PD, and FBI investigative support.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
1 documented time USMMA’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Clery ASR
- Official
- Official
- Official
- Source
Tags
policyemergency-notificationmilitaryservice-academymerchant-marine-academykings-pointclery-asrshelter-in-placenew-york
Added 2026-07-03Updated 2026-07-03Via ingestion