Information Intake 

Campus incidents rarely arrive as clear, verified reports. Information is received from multiple sources: campus security, facilities, residential life, faculty, students, and social media. Early reports are frequently incomplete or conflicting. At this stage, alert issuers must distinguish signal from noise while managing normalcy bias and assumptions that "this is probably nothing." Hesitation here often carries forward into later decisions.

Incident Framing and Protective Action 

Once a potential issue is identified, the key decision is not naming the exact nature of the incident, but determining the appropriate protective action. Campus threats evolve rapidly, and premature classification can constrain messaging as conditions change. A report of a "suspicious person with possible weapon" may evolve into anything from a false alarm to an active threat. Rather than waiting for confirmation of weapon type, effective alerts focus on "shelter in place" as the protective action. Effective issuers focus on what the campus community should do, not on perfect incident labeling.

Determining the Alert Threshold 

One of the most difficult decisions is whether a situation warrants mass notification. In our setting, this judgment is shaped by concerns about over-alerting, disruption to academic operations, media scrutiny, and institutional reputation. The psychological cost of sending an alert often feels heavier than the risk of delay, even when early notification would better support safety.

Authority and Organizational Pressure 

Although policies may grant authority to issue alerts, hierarchical culture can undermine real-time decision-making. Issuers may hesitate while seeking approval from unavailable leadership. When authority is not clearly reinforced through training and leadership messaging, delay becomes the default response. Clear delegation, documented in policy and reinforced through training/exercises reduces the likelihood of the alert authority second-guessing themselves during an actual event.

Message Development Under Stress 

In the absence of appropriate templates, alert messages must be written quickly, clearly, and for an audience also under stress. Cognitive load increases the risk of overly-specific language, excessive qualifications, or messages that do not provide clear direction. This is why pre-written templates are vital. It is also vital to ensure that our alerting staff have a deep understanding of these templates beforehand.

If you’re not familiar with her already, Dr. Jeannette Sutton has done outstanding research on the composition of effective emergency messages. 

The Point of Commitment 

Sending an alert is an irreversible action. This moment carries significant psychological weight on campuses sensitive to accountability and perception. Without templates, predefined thresholds, and regular practice, this "point of no return" can cause last-second hesitation or unnecessary edits that reduce clarity.

Conclusion  Policies, procedures, and technology are certainly necessary foundations for emergency alerting, but they do not determine whether an alert is timely or effective. That outcome is shaped by human decisions made under uncertainty, often by a single individual operating with incomplete information, time pressure, and organizational scrutiny. When institutions treat alerting as a technical task, hesitation, delay, and overly cautious messaging become predictable outcomes. Improving campus alerting requires acknowledging how decisions are actually made in real incidents. Training must normalize uncertainty, prioritize protective action over perfect incident classification, and clearly reinforce the authority to act early and update as information evolves. When policies, training, and institutional culture align with real-world decision-making, emergency alerts function as intended, timely protective action that support the safety of the campus community.

Andy Lewen, MPH

Director of Emergency Management

Pace University