Policy: Emergency Notifications and Timely Warnings - Richland Campus
UNIVERSITY POLICY: Health & Public Safety
Date Revised: February 22, 2022
Date Effective: September 2018
Responsible University Officer: Provost and Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services
Policy Owner: Assistant Provost
POLICY STATEMENT
PROCEDURES
EMERGENCY NOTIFICATIONS
Under the Clery Act, UW-Platteville is required to immediately notify the campus community upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation occurring on-campus and in on-campus student housing that involves an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees. An “immediate” threat includes an imminent or impending threat, such as an approaching forest fire, or a fire currently in a campus building. In the event of an emergency, please contact the City of Richland Center Police Department and Richland County Sheriff’s Office by dialing 911. These situations are referred to as Emergency Notifications. Some other examples of significant emergencies or dangerous situations may be:
- Outbreak of meningitis, norovirus or other serious illness;
- Approaching tornado, or other extreme weather conditions;
- Earthquake;
- Gas Leak;
- Bomb Threat;
- Civil unrest or rioting;
- Explosion;
- Nearby chemical or hazardous waste spill.
B. In the event an emergency notification can be issued to a segment of the campus community, the Assistant Provost, Assistant Dean, and Student Life and Activities Coordinator, in consultation with key administrative units, such as Facilities, Information Technology Services, and/or the local first-responder agencies, and public health agencies, and the National Weather Service, will make that determination based on the type of emergency, location, impact to community, and the overall safety and security of the campus. For example, a chemical spill in the Chemistry lab. In this scenario, it may be necessary to send out a notification to the occupants of that building to evacuate and stay away from the building, but there may not be a need to send out a campus wide message.
D. When the Richland Campus receives and confirms information that there is an emergency or dangerous situation that poses an immediate threat to the health or safety of some or all of the members of the Richland Campus community, the university will and without delay, notify the University community, or the appropriate segment of the community if the threat is limited to a particular building or segment of the population. Complete notification of 100-percent of the campus population is not possible; however, attempts will be made to notify the largest percentage feasible in the fastest way available. The primary notification system at UW-Platteville is the Rave Alert System, which is a text alert and email based notification.
- For fires in any of the campus buildings, the automated Fire Alarm system will create a visual and audible alarm in the specific building where smoke and/or fire was detected. If it appears the fire from one building might spread to another, the Assistant Provost, Assistant Dean, and Student Life and Activities Coordinator will activate the Rave Alert (Email/Text Alert) to those that may be affected and/or will activate the Fire Alarm System in those buildings to begin evacuation.
- For all other emergencies the Assistant Provost, Assistant Dean, and Student Life and Activities Coordinator will be the primary first responders and will evaluate and analyze the incident to determine the scope of the emergency situation and resources needed, with the assistance of other key departments at the University (Facilities, ITS, Residence Life) and emergency response resources in the community (police, fire, ems, weather service, etc.). The Assistant Provost will receive real-time updates from personnel responding or at the scene of any emergency related event when possible. Once the Assistant Provost or designee receives that information, UW-Platteville will utilize a current list of authorized employees that can send emergency communications (see below), to determine who will send that information out to the campus community.
- The University’s primary notification system is a campus-wide email text message and email blast to the campus community; UW-Platteville has partnered with Rave Wireless, Inc. to provide emergency text and email messaging to the campus community. Rave’s Text and Email alert system is an “opt out” service for all students, meaning that at registration, students are automatically enrolled into the notification system and if a student chooses not to participate, that student would have to deactivate their account. For University employees, these text and email alerts are also an “opt out” service, but the University does not require that employees provide a cell phone number. Therefore, the Rave Text and Email alert system is discussed at all new employee orientations.
- Message posted on the home page of the UW-Platteville and/or Richland Campus webpage depending on the type of emergency and locations affected by the emergency.
- Message posted through UW-Platteville Richland’s Facebook and Twitter social media accounts;
(It should be noted that while the Assistant Provost, Assistant Dean, Student Life and Activities Coordinator, and Communications Manager will be main group responsible for initiating the alert systems, UW-Platteville realizes that there may be instances when all three are busy dealing with the emergency at hand. In those cases, UW-Platteville has created the document below to provide a more in depth chart of who is authorized to send alerts on behalf of the Dean).
TIMELY WARNINGS
- Criminal homicide: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, manslaughter by negligence
- Sexual assault: rape, fondling, incest, statutory rape
- Robbery
- Aggravated assault
- Burglary
- Motor vehicle theft
- Arson
- Domestic violence
- Dating violence
- Stalking
- Weapons law violations
- Drug abuse violations
- Liquor law violations
- Hate Crimes (All the above) and;
- Larceny-theft
- Simple assault
- Intimidation
- Destruction/damage/vandalism of property
A. The following factors should be considered when determining whether to issue a Timely Warning:
- The location of the crime
- The nature of the crime (serious/non-serious, violent/non-violent)
- The nature of the threat (general threat versus limited threat to a specific person)
- Whether or not there is a continuing danger to the community or a continuing crime pattern.
- Aggravated Assault (cases involving assaults among known parties, such as two roommates fighting which results in an aggravated injury, will be evaluated on a case by case basis to determine if the individual is believed to be an on-going threat to the larger UW-Platteville Richland campus community)
- Robbery involving force or violence (cases including pick pocketing and purse snatching will typically not result in the issuance of a Timely Warning, but will be assessed on a case-by-case basis)
- Sexual Assault (considered on a case-by-case basis depending on the facts of the case, when and where the incident occurred, when it was reported, and the amount of information known by local law enforcement, Assistant Provost, Assistant Dean, and Student Life and Activities Coordinator.
D. If the victim of the crime is a person, that person will not be identified by name in a Timely Warnings. Timely Warnings are issued as soon as the pertinent information is available to the Assistant Provost or their designee.1. Date and time or timeframe of the incident2. A Brief description of the incident3. Information that will promote safety and potentially aid in the prevention of similar crimes4. Suspect description(s) when deemed appropriate and if there is sufficient detail. The description of subject in a case will only be included in the alert if there is a sufficient amount of detail to describe the individual5. Police agency contact information6. Other information as deemed appropriate by the Assistant Provost or designee.
G. The University does not issue Timely Warnings for the above listed crimes if:1. A campus-wide text message and email blast to the UW-Platteville Richland community;2. Message posted on the home page of the UW-Platteville Richland website;3. Message posted through UW-Platteville Richland's Facebook and Twitter social media accounts;
H. Issued Timely Warning are filed in the Clery folder on the network drive. Specifically, each Timely Warning is filed in the year in which it was issued, in a folder titled, “Timely Warnings & Emergency Notifications”.a. The Assistant Provost or their designee determines there is no serious or continuing threat to the safety of UW-Platteville campus community.b. The subject(s) is apprehended and the threat of imminent danger to members of the UW–Platteville Richland’s community have been mitigated by the apprehension.c. If a report was not filed with the Campus or if the Campus was not notified of the crime in a matter that would allow the Campus to post a “timely” Timely Warning to the community. A general guideline will include a report that is filed more than 7-10 days after the date of the alleged incident may not allow the department to post a “timely” Timely Warning to the community. This type of situation will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and may fall under the Emergency Notification section of this policy.
STUDENT AND EMPLOYEE REGISTRATION FOR TIMELY WARNINGS, EMERGENCY NOTIFICATIONS, AND PIONEER ALERTS
Students and employees are automatically enrolled to receive Pioneer Alerts emergency text messages, unless they opt-out of the Rave Alert program. Student cell phone numbers are retrieved from the UW-Platteville PASS system. If an employee provides a cell phone number to Human Resources, they are automatically enrolled in the system as well. For employees that did not provide a cell phone number, or if a student chooses to add a parent, relative, or friend into the Rave Alert system, please register here: https://www.getrave.com/login/uwplatt.
Everyone with a UW-Platteville, including branch campuses, affiliated email address receives Timely Warnings, Emergency Notifications, and Pioneer Alerts and cannot opt-out or unsubscribe. The email database is updated daily with the most current list of email addresses. Additional emergency contact and local contact information for students and employees can be registered at https://go.uwplatt.edu/pass/login
PIONEER ALERT, EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION, AND TIMELY WARNING SYSTEM TESTING
The Communications office, in conjunction with the Richland Campus Administrators, test the Pioneer Alert text messaging and email system on a monthly basis. This test is completed on the first Wednesday of each month and it sent out campus wide.
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS
Subject | Contact | Phone | Fax/Email |
Primary Contact | Name | Phone | Fax/Email |
Assistant Provost | Mike Compton | 608.355.5242 | compton@uwplatt.edu |
Clery Coordinator | Jason Williams | 608.342.1584 | williaja@uwplatt.edu |
RELATED DOCUMENTS
REVISION HISTORY
SCHEDULED REVIEW