Testing UIC’s Emergency Notification and Response Procedures

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

On Thursday, Nov. 21, the UIC Campus Incident Response Team participated in an unannounced discussion-based exercise to evaluate the university’s preparedness for an emergency situation on campus. It focused on the overall ability of university staff to coordinate and organize resources to support the university community during a simulated event, and discuss how these actions aligned with the UIC Emergency Operations Plan. By working together to examine our capabilities in a test setting, the university is better equipped to effectively respond to and recover from an actual emergency.

In the event of an actual emergency, it will be critical to deliver timely, consistent and accurate information to the UIC community. Therefore, following the discussion-based exercise, the university initiated an unannounced drill of the UIC ALERT emergency mass notification system on Tuesday, Dec. 3. A UIC ALERT email was sent to all active UIC email addresses and a UIC ALERT SMS text message was sent to all registered mobile phones. You are strongly encouraged to sign up for UIC ALERT by visiting emergency.uic.edu. Annual re-enrollment is not required, and up to three (3) mobile phone numbers can be added to receive notifications. We encourage you to add the phone number of a parent, family member or friend to receive UIC ALERT messages.

UIC ALERT [TEST] messages were posted in the UIC SAFE app, to Twitter, Facebook, the uic.edu website, emergency.uic.edu, on UIC college and department websites enabled to automatically post emergency alert notifications. The alert system uses multiple communications methods to quickly notify the university community of critical life-safety situations and to advise on protective measures to take in response to immediate threats to the welfare, health and safety of everyone in our community.

In order to strengthen university resiliency, we must regularly test and update our ability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all-hazards. These types of training and exercising activities are foundational to ensure our emergency plans are workable, complete, and understood by those tasked with implementing them. These activities will help to foster a culture of preparedness at the university.

To learn more on how to improve your personal readiness for a variety of emergencies, including incident-specific hazards or threats, please visit ready.uic.edu.

Sincerely,

John Coronado
Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services

David Ibrahim
Assistant Vice Chancellor
Office of Preparedness and Response

For more information, please contact:
Emergency Preparedness
ready@uic.edu