UGA
UGA Alert / Emergency Notification
The University of Georgia operates UGA Alert, an emergency notification system that reaches the campus community by text, voice phone call, and email, and which the Office of Emergency Preparedness pairs with a separate emergency-notification vs. timely-warning framework that maps directly to the federal Clery Act.
Read the official policyInstitution
University of Georgia
Public R1 · GA
~41,000 studentsUGA Alert
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Emergency Notification activation criteriaverbatim
Emergency notifications are used when there is a severe health or safety threat to the entire campus that has not been contained or controlled and when immediate action is required to stay safe (such as tornado warnings, active shooters, or chemical spills).
- — Reserves the Emergency Notification specifically for uncontained, campus-wide threats requiring immediate protective action, matching the Clery 'immediate threat' standard.
Timely Warning activation criteria and channelsverbatim
Timely Warnings are used when a situation on or near campus constitutes an ongoing or continuing threat to the campus community. The UGA Police Department sends timely warnings through email and through a push notification in the UGA Safe app.
- — Distinguishes the Timely Warning (ongoing/continuing threat) from the Emergency Notification and assigns issuance to the UGA Police Department via email + UGA Safe app push.
Timely Warning 'without delay' standard and authorityverbatim
In the event that a situation arises, either on or off campus, that, in the judgment of the Chief of the UGA Police Department or their designee, constitutes an ongoing or continuing threat, a campus-wide "timely warning" will be issued without delay, as soon as the pertinent information is available to permit such a warning.
- — Vests the timely-warning judgment in the Chief of the UGA Police Department or designee and codifies the Clery 'without delay' timing standard.
Emergency Notification channel activationverbatim
Emergency notifications activate all UGA Alert dissemination methods, which include e-mail, SMS text message and phone calls. Additionally, weather alerts will also be shared via email, the UGA Safe app, social media, and the emergency.uga.edu website.
- — Confirms that an Emergency Notification fires the full channel set (email, SMS, phone), with weather alerts adding the UGA Safe app, social media, and the emergency.uga.edu website.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- Emergency Notification: a severe health or safety threat to the entire campus that has not been contained or controlled and that requires immediate action to stay safe (e.g., tornado warning, active shooter, chemical spill). Timely Warning: a situation on or near campus that constitutes an ongoing or continuing threat to the campus community.
- Who decides
- On the Athens campus, UGA Alert emergency notifications and timely warnings are usually sent by the UGA Police Department. Messages can be authorized by the UGA President, any Vice President, the Chief of Police (or acting Chief), and the Director of Emergency Preparedness (or acting director). Timely warnings are issued in the judgment of the Chief of the UGA Police Department or their designee.
- Timeliness standard
- Timely warnings are issued 'without delay, as soon as the pertinent information is available to permit such a warning.' UGA Alert is engineered to send thousands of messages within minutes.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- Explicitly tiered to the Clery Act: Emergency Notifications for immediate, uncontained threats requiring immediate action; Timely Warnings (handled by the UGA Police Department) for ongoing or continuing threats from Clery-reportable crimes.
- Testing cadence
- UGA Alert is tested twice a year — during the February statewide severe weather drill and again near the start of the fall semester during the UGA evacuation drill. The community is urged to verify contact information annually at ugaalert.uga.edu.
- Scope & limits
- Timely warnings are tied to ongoing/continuing threats and Clery-reportable crimes and are issued by the UGA Police Department. Authorization is limited to the President, any Vice President, the Chief of Police (or acting), and the Director of Emergency Preparedness (or acting). Routing applies specifically to the Athens campus.
ChannelsSmsEmailPhone CallPush NotificationWebsiteTwitter XFacebook
Analysis
Reading the policy
UGA distinguishes two Clery-driven communication tiers. Per the UGA Emergency Preparedness office, an Emergency Notification is used when there is a severe health or safety threat to the entire campus that has not been contained or controlled and when immediate action is required to stay safe — the office's own examples are tornado warnings, active shooters, and chemical spills. A Timely Warning, by contrast, is used when a situation on or near campus constitutes an ongoing or continuing threat to the campus community; timely warnings are handled and issued by the UGA Police Department, which sends them through email and a push notification in the UGA Safe app. The Clery framing is explicit: in the judgment of the Chief of the UGA Police Department or their designee, a campus-wide timely warning is issued 'without delay, as soon as the pertinent information is available to permit such a warning.'
The two tiers ride on different channel sets. An Emergency Notification activates all UGA Alert dissemination methods — email, SMS text message, and phone calls — and weather alerts are additionally shared via email, the UGA Safe app, social media, and the emergency.uga.edu website. The system is engineered for speed: UGA describes UGA Alert as capable of sending thousands of messages within minutes. Decision authority is tightly scoped. On the Athens campus, UGA Alert emergency notifications or timely warnings are usually sent by the UGA Police Department, and messages can be authorized only by the UGA President, any Vice President, the Chief of Police (or acting Chief), and the Director of Emergency Preparedness (or acting director).
UGA tests the system on a recurring cadence rather than a single annual shot: per the Office of Emergency Preparedness, UGA Alert is tested twice a year — during the February statewide severe weather drill and again near the beginning of the fall semester during the UGA evacuation drill — and the community is urged to verify their contact information annually at ugaalert.uga.edu. Student email addresses are automatically registered, so anyone signed up with an email address will automatically receive Timely Warning and Community Notification emails when issued. Because the official .edu pages return HTTP 403 to automated fetching in this environment, the verbatim excerpts below were captured from the official UGA page text as reproduced in search results and corroborated across multiple independent queries; remaining detail is paraphrased.
Takeaways
Key findings
UGA splits emergency communication into two Clery tiers: Emergency Notifications (uncontained campus-wide threat requiring immediate action) and Timely Warnings (ongoing or continuing threat), the latter issued by the UGA Police Department.
Timely warnings are issued 'without delay' in the judgment of the Chief of the UGA Police Department or their designee.
An Emergency Notification activates all UGA Alert methods — email, SMS text, and phone calls — while weather alerts add the UGA Safe app, social media, and the emergency.uga.edu website.
Authorization is restricted to the President, any Vice President, the Chief of Police (or acting), and the Director of Emergency Preparedness (or acting).
UGA Alert is tested twice a year (February statewide severe weather drill and the fall-semester UGA evacuation drill); the community is urged to verify contact info annually.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
7 documented times UGA’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Official
- News
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actuga-alertuga-safepublic-r1georgia
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion