Please alert your students to the options available in an emergency.

First-day Announcement

Emergencies can happen anywhere and at any time, so it’s important that we take a minute to prepare for a situation in which our safety could depend on our ability to react quickly.

Take a moment to learn the different ways to leave this building. If there’s ever a fire alarm or evacuation, you’ll know how to get out and you’ll be able to help others get out.

Next, figure out the best place to go in case of severe weather – we’ll need to go to the lowest level in the middle of the building, away from windows.

And finally, if there’s ever someone trying to hurt us, our best option is to run out of the building. If we cannot do that safely, we’ll want to hide somewhere we can’t be seen, and we’ll have to lock or barricade the door if possible and be as quiet as we can. We will not leave that safe area until we get an UIS-Alert confirming that it’s safe to do so. If we can’t run or hide, we’ll fight back with whatever we can get our hands on.

If you want to better prepare yourself for any of these situations, view the Emergency Response Guidelines. Remember you can sign up for emergency text messages.

Syllabus Attachment

We’ve included these guidelines in a Emergency Response Guidelines one-page handout [PDF] which we hope you can distribute when classes begin.