Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef has announced the new campus emergency alert system, and Dateline reported the details on Feb. 22. For its purposes, IET would like to underscore two points the chancellor made: first, staff and faculty who have recently updated their directory information don't need to do so again--and second, it's not time yet to submit the additional personal contact information that the system will need once it's fully up and running.

The contact system will use information in the campus directory, or provided by students, to reach people on campus during emergencies. If you teach or work at UC Davis and your directory listing is current, you don't need to do anything else for now.

By June, when the system is ready, faculty and staff will be asked for additional contact data, such as a home or cell phone number, to broaden the system's ability to reach people on short notice. That information will not be included in the campus directory. Beginning in late spring, students will be asked for more emergency contact information when they register for classes each quarter.

The system gets its first tryout Feb. 27 and 28, when messages will be sent to randomly selected samples of faculty and staff to see how UC Davis networks handle the volume. A few students will also be part of the tests. If you receive a message, Vanderhoef said, please follow its directions.

The campus directory is produced by Communications Resources, a branch of Information and Educational Technology. Read more about campus emergency services here.