STUDENT AFFAIRS
Office of the Vice President
Programs & Services
Policies & ProceduresEmergency Notification Process
Recently, the police department was involved in a review of the University’s Crisis Communication Plan. As we were reviewing all the components of the plan, it occurred to me that some of the information might be useful to the parents of our students.
Since 2007, Armstrong has had an Emergency Notification System in place. The system is called “BLAST,” which I believe is a shortened way of stating it is a Message Blasting system.
The system allows the police dispatcher to send out time-sensitive information by:
- Voice messages to home and cell phones
- Text messages to cell phones and other text-enabled devices
- Written text to email accounts
- Written text to the university Web page
- Written text to the university monitors in housing and the student union.
If you would like to receive BLAST notifications, all you have to do is have your student include your number in the account when they review the account information.
After you have signed up for BLAST, when we issue an advisory message for any reason, such as a tornado warning or hurricane update, you will receive the same message your student receives.
If you do activate this feature and receive a “BLAST” message, we ask that you do not call the Armstrong Police for additional information. Generally, when we issue a “BLAST” message, the dispatcher is very busy and unable to handle information requests. So, as additional information becomes available, there will be follow-up “BLAST” messages and updates to the university’s Web page, http://www.armstrong.edu/blast/
.
If you have any questions about the safety effort on Armstrong’s Campus, please feel free to contact me.
Wayne R. Willcox, MSCJ, CLEE
Chief of Police
