News and Media Relations plays a lead role in emergency communications, working closely with the UMass Police Department, the Office of Emergency Management and other campus departments.

The Emergency Notification System is designed to swiftly disseminate emergency information about an incident or situation related to public health, safety, or security, and to provide instructions to the campus community.

We do this by way of UMass Alerts text messages, broadcast email, posts to the university home page, outdoor warning sirens, social media, an emergency-closing telephone hotline, and the emergency-closing-status web page.