Emergency notification system test on Tuesday
March 6, 2023 8:02 AM

Dear campus community member,

The Urbana campus will test its emergency notification system at 10:05 a.m. on Tuesday, March 7.

You may notice additional labeling on Illini-Alert messages because of a change made in February to comply with new Federal Communications Commission rules. All future Illini-Alert messages will include one of these keywords: Urgent, Critical, Emergency, Test or Drill. These keywords signify to wireless carriers that the alert is a legitimate emergency message. The inclusion of a keyword increases the likelihood that the message will successfully pass through the carriers' spam filters and be delivered to your device. The keywords are not intended to characterize the seriousness of an emergency or the urgency of your response.

All campus community members are encouraged to sign up for Illini-Alert text messages to receive prompt notification of campus emergencies. You can do so by visiting http://emergency.illinois.edu. Contact information for friends and relatives may be added at http://go.illinois.edu/illinialertmyfamily. Anyone else can sign up by texting "IlliniAlert" to 226787.

The March 7 test of the Illini-Alert system will use all of the communication capabilities of the emergency notification system:

• Email messages will be sent to all active faculty and staff members and students with campus email addresses.
• Text messages will be sent to those people who have registered their cellphone numbers.  
• A message will be sent to the Illini-Alert Twitter account (http://twitter.com/illinialert).
• A message will appear on all digital signs connected to the Illini-Alert system.

The test does not require any response; evaluators will be able to monitor the speed and distribution rates of the messaging. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Brian Brauer

Executive Director of Emergency Management
Division of Public Safety