On Monday, Jan. 23, at 2 p.m., GCU will be conducting a full test of its emergency notification system, AlertGCU, using text, email, desktop and display board alerts and posting the emergency drill messages to emergency.gcu.edu. This drill is anticipated to last for approximately 30 minutes.

Students, faculty and staff will receive multiple messages. GCU is asking for students, faculty and staff to participate and follow the message instructions to the best of their ability and campus location. All test notifications will include “This is a test.” In the event of a real emergency and threat to life and safety, AlertGCU notifications will include specific instructions, such as Lockdown or Run/Hide/Fight protocols.

Faculty, staff, students and food vendors need to anticipate disruptions to normal operations during this test. GCU encourages all faculty, staff and students to utilize this test to review action steps of Run, Hide, Fight and Lockdown based upon the location of an active threat. Detailed information on these active threat protocols can be found at emergency.gcu.edu.

In an effort to share accessible and timely emergency incident information to students, faculty, staff and visitors, GCU is committed to implementing multiple emergency notification and alerting technologies.

Text messages: These messages will be short and include quick, proactive instructions or Public Safety messages. For example, “There is an active threat near Papago Hall! Run, Hide, Fight! All other areas of campus should go into Lockdown” or “There is an active threat inside CCOB: Run, Hide, Fight!”

Email messages: Mass email notifications are the best platform to provide more detailed information and incident updates to all students, faculty and staff. Depending on the type of incident, an email may be the only form of communication to update everyone.

Desktop and display board messages: Similar to text messages, this message will automatically appear on computers and display boards connected to GCU’s secure network, which includes anyone connected via VPN.

Website: GCU Public Safety will post alerts, emergency notifications and ongoing incident updates to the emergency.gcu.edu website.

Social media platforms: Some emergency notifications and incident updates will be posted to GCU’s official Facebook and Instagram sites. These messages may be restricted in length, will likely have limited details, and will direct the reader to another source. An example social media post on these platforms is, “An emergency occurred on the GCU campus. Please visit emergency.gcu.edu for more details.”

Emergency Contact Information
If you are unsure if you have updated your emergency cell phone number and email and/or do not receive an emergency alert during the Jan. 23rd drill, please contact:

Faculty and staff: Check Workday or contact the HR business center.

Students: Contact your Student Services Counselor.

We thank you for helping to support these new warnings, alerts and notifications technologies. We also appreciate your support and cooperation during the upcoming drills. If you have any questions regarding the information shared within this email, please email [email protected].