CU Boulder
CU Boulder Alerts — Emergency Notification, Safety Alert (Timely Warning) and Advisory Policy
The University of Colorado Boulder issues campus emergency notifications through CU Boulder Alerts, a Rave Mobile Safety-backed system organized into three tiers — CU Emergency Alerts (confirmed immediate threats), CU Safety Alerts (the Clery Act timely-warning function for reported crimes posing a serious or ongoing threat), and CU Advisories (lower-threshold situational awareness) — with text messaging as the preferred channel.
Read the official policyInstitution
University of Colorado Boulder
Public R1 · CO
~38,799 studentsCU Boulder Alerts
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
CU Emergency Alert activation criteriaverbatim
CU Boulder issues emergency notifications, called CU Emergency Alerts, to the campus community when there is a confirmed immediate threat to the safety of those on campus (or near campus in areas of high student populations). Such threats may include an active harmer, a natural disaster, severe weather or other time-sensitive life safety concerns.
- — Defines the top-tier emergency-notification threshold as a 'confirmed immediate threat.' Identical wording recurred across the CU Boulder Today explainer and the alerts.colorado.edu Alert Levels page.
Clery emergency-notification standardverbatim
Emergency Notification(s) upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees occurring on CU Boulder
- — The federal Clery emergency-notification trigger as rendered on CU Boulder's Clery compliance page; recurred across the /clery/ landing and Clery-act pages.
Preferred channel / delivery methodsverbatim
Alerts are sent out via text message, email, social media and posted to the alerts site. Text messaging is the preferred method, as it reaches the most individuals in the least amount of time.
- — Establishes text messaging as the preferred channel. A fuller channel list (adding computer desktop alerts and website announcements) appears in the semester test announcements.
CU Safety Alert (Clery timely warning)verbatim
Campus also issues CU Safety Alerts in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act). CU Safety Alerts are notifications to campus community members, sent to their colorado.edu email accounts, for certain reported crimes committed on or near campus that represent a serious or ongoing threat.
- — Names CU Safety Alerts as the Clery timely-warning tier (email-only to colorado.edu) for reported crimes posing a serious or ongoing threat — distinct from the immediate-threat CU Emergency Alert tier.
Testing cadence (each semester / Clery-required)verbatim
CU Boulder tests its alert system each semester. The biannual testing, required by a federal law known as the Clery Act, involves checking the university's systems for sending text messages, emails, social media posts, computer desktop alerts and website announcements.
- — Documents the per-semester (biannual) test cadence and ties it to the Clery Act. Near-identical wording recurs across multiple semesters' test announcements (2023-2026).
Decision authorityverbatim
All notifications are compiled and disseminated by CU Boulder Police, CU Boulder Emergency Management and CU Boulder Strategic Relations and Communications.
- — Identifies the three units that jointly compile and send alerts; a companion line states CUPD dispatchers are trained to determine the level of response needed.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- CU Emergency Alerts are issued 'when there is a confirmed immediate threat to the safety of those on campus (or near campus in areas of high student populations)' — examples include an active harmer, a natural disaster, or severe weather — mapping to the Clery standard of confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to health or safety. CU Safety Alerts (the Clery timely-warning tier) are issued for reported crimes that represent a serious or ongoing threat. CU Advisories cover lower-threshold situations warranting awareness.
- Who decides
- Notifications are compiled and disseminated by CU Boulder Police, CU Boulder Emergency Management, and Strategic Relations and Communications; CUPD dispatchers are trained to determine the level of response needed. No single named issuing officer was identified — authority is shared across these units.
- Timeliness standard
- CU Boulder frames issuance around the Clery standard of acting upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to health or safety; the alerts website is typically updated within 15 to 20 minutes of the first text-message alert. The literal Clery 'without delay' phrasing in CU Boulder's own ASFSR could not be confirmed verbatim (the .edu host and ASFSR PDF blocked automated fetching).
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- CU Boulder explicitly ties its tiers to the Clery Act: CU Emergency Alerts serve the emergency-notification function for confirmed immediate threats, while CU Safety Alerts are issued 'in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act' as timely warnings for reported crimes posing a serious or ongoing threat. CU Boulder publishes an Annual Security and Fire Safety Report (ASFSR).
- Testing cadence
- CU Boulder tests its alert system each semester (a biannual cadence) and repeatedly states this testing is required by the Clery Act; tests check text, email, social media, computer desktop alerts, and website announcements.
- Scope & limits
- Students and employees with colorado.edu accounts are reached automatically by email; full text/voice reach depends on current contact information registered in the Rave system. Text messaging is positioned as the preferred channel because it reaches the most people fastest. CU Advisories sit below the emergency/safety-alert threshold and are not life-safety alerts.
ChannelsSmsEmailTwitter XFacebookWebsiteDesktop Popup
Analysis
Reading the policy
The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) is a public R1 research university in Boulder, Colorado, with enrollment of roughly 38,800. Its campus emergency-notification program is branded CU Boulder Alerts, hosted at alerts.colorado.edu and powered by Rave Mobile Safety — the same vendor that supports the campus Guardian/Safe app, with alert email originating from a getrave.com address. CU Boulder is unusual in that it formally distinguishes three named alert levels rather than the typical two-tier emergency-notification / timely-warning split.
The top tier is the CU Emergency Alert, which the university says it sends 'when there is a confirmed immediate threat to the safety of those on campus,' citing examples such as an active harmer, a natural disaster, or severe weather. This maps to the federal Clery Act emergency-notification standard, which CU Boulder's Clery compliance page frames as issuance 'upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees.' For these alerts, text messaging is described as the preferred method 'as it reaches the most individuals in the least amount of time,' with delivery also via email, social media, computer desktop alerts, and the alerts website. CU Boulder additionally offers emergency and closure messaging in several languages including Spanish, simplified and traditional Chinese, German, Hindi, and Korean.
The second tier, the CU Safety Alert, is explicitly the Clery Act timely-warning function: the university states these are issued 'in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act)' for 'certain reported crimes committed on or near campus that represent a serious or ongoing threat,' delivered to colorado.edu email accounts. The third tier, CU Advisories, covers high-profile but lower-threshold situations (power failures, building evacuations, road closures, nearby police activity). Notifications are compiled and disseminated jointly by CU Boulder Police, CU Boulder Emergency Management, and Strategic Relations and Communications, with CUPD dispatchers 'trained to determine the level of response that is needed.'
CU Boulder tests the system each semester — a biannual cadence the university repeatedly ties to the Clery Act in its recurring test announcements. The literal Clery 'without delay' issuance phrasing in CU Boulder's own Annual Security and Fire Safety Report could not be byte-for-byte confirmed because the .edu host and ASFSR PDF returned HTTP 403 to automated fetching; the operational excerpts here were captured from official-page search snippets that recurred identically across multiple retrievals, so the activation, channel, decision-authority, Clery-distinction, and testing excerpts are marked verbatim-confirmed, while the strict 'without delay' timing standard is noted as reconstructed.
Takeaways
Key findings
CU Boulder's emergency-notification program is branded CU Boulder Alerts (alerts.colorado.edu), backed by Rave Mobile Safety.
It uses three named tiers: CU Emergency Alerts (confirmed immediate threats), CU Safety Alerts (the Clery timely-warning function for reported crimes posing a serious or ongoing threat), and CU Advisories (lower-threshold awareness).
Text messaging is the explicitly preferred channel because it reaches the most people fastest; alerts also go out by email, social media, desktop alerts, and the alerts website, with multilingual messaging available.
Notifications are jointly compiled and sent by CU Boulder Police, Emergency Management, and Strategic Relations and Communications, with CUPD dispatchers determining response level.
The system is tested each semester (biannually), a cadence CU Boulder ties to the Clery Act.
The literal Clery 'without delay' issuance phrasing in CU Boulder's own ASFSR could not be byte-for-byte confirmed (the .edu host and ASFSR PDF blocked automated fetching); operational excerpts were captured from recurring official-page search snippets.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
15 documented times CU Boulder’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
+ 7 more in the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Clery ASR
- Official
- Official
- Official
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningpublic-r1coloradocu-boulder-alertsravemulti-tier
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion