For over three years, MU students have been notified about current threats on campus through MU Alert and the MU Police Department. MU Alert uses text messages, emails, website updates and social media to reach more than 95 percent of the student body in the event of an emergency.
This month, the Missouri Students Association’s open forum, Roar at Us, hosted MUPD Chief Doug Schwandt, Emergency Management Coordinator Eric Evans and MU spokesman Christian Basi for an open discussion about the program.
[Roar at Us](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/8/22/msa-executive-cabinet-plans-monthly-open-forums/) is a new monthly forum hosted by MSA’s executive cabinet. The open forum serves to give students a voice to increase diversity and inclusivity on campus. Each forum will take place the first Thursday of every month in Leadership Auditorium.
About a dozen students attended the forum on Sept. 1. Discussion centered on how the MU Alert system functions.
Since the system was created, the alerts have consisted of a brief notification of a potential threat on campus, usually without a specific location. Students were notified through text message, email and Twitter. In response to the alerts, students requested more specific details from MU Alert and MUPD about what was going on.
“People called to ask what’s going on,” Schwandt said. “We don’t have time for that in an emergency.”
MU Alert has now changed their system by adopting the Rave Mobile Safety platform of communication. Rave Mobile Safety hosts all police and emergency programs in Boone County. This change for MU Alert uses two dispatchers instead of one, as well as a hyperlink attached to each alert with more details about the potential threat.
“We can add a location now. That was one of the criticisms, asking where [the incident is] at,” Schwandt said. “Now we have a better system; we can do that.”
The hyperlink will take students to the MU Alert website, where there will be confirmed details about the suspect and the incident. The GoMizzou app now includes MU Alert access in the event of an emergency.
Despite the plans for change, hours after the forum, MU Alert sent mass emails and texts to the community with information about a reported robbery, leaving out the location of the emergency.
“This omission was due to human error, and we take full responsibility,” Vice Chancellor for Operations Gary Ward wrote in an email apology to campus the next morning.
MUPD [later charged](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/9/2/delivery-driver-allegedly-falsified-wolpers-robber/) Courtney Chancellor, a 23-year-old food delivery driver who made the report, with a single count of filing a false report. Chancellor is not an MU student.
“Using evidence from the surveillance camera, we interviewed Courtney Chancellor, and she confessed that she had reported the crime falsely,” Schwandt wrote on the [MU Alert website](http://mualert.missouri.edu/updates/2016/09-02-MUPD-arrest/).
MSA President Sean Earl said he had spoken with Ward and that administrators and MUPD were taking action to prevent further issues.
“We hope that all of these errors can be fixed before there is a severe threat or incident on campus,” Earl said.
MU Alert and MUPD received backlash from the community last year for its emergency alert process.
The night after former UM System President Tim Wolfe resigned in November 2015, [anonymous threats made on Yik Yak](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2015/11/17/catch-what-you-missed-regarding-yik-yak-threats/) led to panic on campus. MU Alert received criticism for the lack of information provided that night.
“Last fall and even into the spring, MU Alert has always been a topic of discussion,” Earl said. “It’s either not doing enough, or needs to be more informative.”
Once a semester, MU Alert will run a check testing the system to ensure the website and alerts are accessible to all students.
Next month, Roar at Us will be hosting Campus Dining Services for another public discussion.
_Edited by Emily Gallion | egallion@themaneater.com_
