Category: Emergency Management

Emergency Preparedness Training is designed to help you:

• develop an understanding of fundamental emergency management principles;
• introduce emergency planning and response resources provided by Mason;
• assess and plan for known threats and anticipate hazards that might occur in the future; and,
• review emergency response roles and responsibilities within the Mason Community.

Employees can access training here on MasonLeaps. Student access is coming soon.

To learn more about Emergency Management at George Mason University, visit ready.gmu.edu.

Dear Patriots,

In our continuous effort to improve communication of emergencies to the campus community, we will be transitioning to an “Opt Out” Mason Alert text message registration model from our current “Opt In” process. This will significantly increase the number of people who receive emergency notifications via text message, which is the quickest Mason Alert delivery method.

Beginning on Monday, December 9, when you log into Patriot Web (https://patriotweb.gmu.edu) you will be prompted to confirm or enter your mobile phone number and elect whether to receive or decline Mason Alert emergency notification text messages. If you decide to decline this service, you may leave the mobile phone field blank.

This process will be conducted annually to ensure that students, faculty, and staff maintain accurate contact information in the Mason Alert emergency notification system. Beginning February 1, 2020, you may only update your primary mobile phone saved in Mason Alert using the Patriot Web portal.  Instructions on how to update your mobile number will be provided on the Mason Alert webpage https://alert.gmu.edu.  Students and employees are still encouraged to add friends and family to their Mason Alert account.

If you wish to receive Mason Alert text messages without registering your mobile phone, you may decline Mason Alert messages in Patriot Web, log into your Mason Alert account, and add your mobile number(s) to receive Mason Alert text messages.

Mobile phone numbers collected through this process will be saved in Banner and used for emergency communication purposes.  If you have any questions or concerns about this process please contact safety@gmu.edu or call (703) 993-8448.

Safety, Emergency, and Enterprise Risk Management

seerm.gmu.edu

safety@gmu.edu

(703) 993-8448

Dear Patriots,

You have either heard of or experienced last month’s erroneous active threat announcement. Fortunately, this was not a real event, but instead an error caused by an external vendor which has been resolved.  For more information about this situation, please visit our advisories page.  Many members of our community reacted quickly using their training to find a safe location, barricade/lock doors, and helped others as necessary. Although we regret this incident, it does remind us of the importance of individual and institutional preparedness. We continue to explore ways to make our campuses as safe as possible.  Please help us in this endeavor by educating yourself on recommended preparedness and response procedures and report emergencies or suspicious conditions to University Police by calling (703) 993-2810.

Mason Alert: All students, faculty, and staff are strongly encouraged to register one or more cell phone numbers with Mason Alert, the university’s emergency notification system. Mason Alert text messages provide timely notification of events affecting your safety.

Active Threat Prevention and Response: Please take 15 minutes to review the university’s Active Threats Awareness and Prevention Video designed to help you identify and report concerning behaviors. This video also reviews actions that should be taken if a person with a weapon is reported on campus.  To register for a scheduled viewing of the Active Threats Awareness and Prevention Videoin the Johnson Center Cinema facilitated by University Police and the Environmental Health and Safety Office (EHS) with a question and answer session, please click here. University Police provide routine Active Threat Training Opportunitiesor training upon request.  To sign up or request training please click here.

Rave Guardian Public Safety App: Mason offers a free public safety app to all students, faculty and staff. Rave Guardian is integrated with Mason Alert and offers a number of important features, including a virtual safety escort function, the ability to submit tips anonymously to University Police, and a panic call button that relays your location to University Police.  The Rave Guardian app is free through the iTunes store and the Google Play store. 

Be Prepared: Information on how to prepare for and respond to emergencies that might occur on campus is available at ready.gmu.edu. This site also has resources to help faculty and staff prepare for emergencies that interrupt classes or impact research activities.

If you have any questions or concerns about Mason’s readiness for potential emergencies on campus, please contact EHS at safety@gmu.edu or 703-993-8448.

Dear Mason Community,

This morning, our community received an alert that there was a dangerous person on our campus. This was an error.

The message was sent inadvertently by one of the university’s emergency notification system software vendors. It was not initiated by anyone on our campus. There was never a threat reported on the Fairfax Campus. Within minutes of receiving this message, the university immediately sent out a message letting the campus know that this was an error.

We understand that this was a frightening experience for our community and apologize for the fear it may have caused.

Environmental Health and Safety is working with the university’s emergency notification system providers to determine how this message was sent and to prevent future incidents.  It appears that this message was triggered by an automated process linked to a test conducted by the emergency notification system vendor in question.  Once we have more information about this incident, we will share it with our community.

Thank you for your patience.

Respectfully,

David Farris, PhD

Executive Director of Safety & Emergency Management

George Mason University