Skip to main content
Butter bar
Prepare for emerging threats in 2024: Strategies for enabling business continuity

The Clery Act

Requirements and steps to compliance

Clery Header 2023 V2

What is the Cleary Act?

The Clery Act includes new regulations related to emergency response, emergency notification, timely warnings, missing student notification, fire safety reporting, and hate crime reporting.

Consequences of not meeting Clery Act requirements:

In 2016, a major institution was hit with a $2.4 million dollar fine for not meeting one of the requirements.

Clery Act communication requirements

CriterionTimely warningEmergency notification
WhatCrimes that continue to pose a threatAny significant emergency or dangerous situation that poses an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees
WhereOn-campus or non-campus (including “public property” that falls in your Clery Act Geography)On-campus only (including oncampus “public property” that falls in your Clery Act Geography)
HowThe entire campus communityCan be tailored to the segment of the community that is threatened
WhenSent when enough information is available to adequately describe the threatSent immediately upon confirmation of the threat

5 steps to Clery Act communication requirement compliance

Form a Cleary committee

Complying with the Clery Act, and especially its emergency communications requirements, is certainly not a one-person job. Bringing together experts from across your institution’s administration can greatly assist in developing clear, defendable policies and procedures regarding the Clery Act’s complex emergency communications requirements.

Determine your geography

The second step is to determine exactly where geographically the Clery Act applies to your campus community. The Clery Act requires the dissemination of emergency communications when a threat occurs on the campus.

Create policies and procedures

It is very important for compliance that you document everything your Clery Act Committee decides upon, especially your institution’s specific conditions (i.e. your Clery Act Geography, your specific procedures for issuing timely warnings and emergency notifications, etc.) for adhering to the Clery Act. The Handbook advises to “do what you say and say what you so.” In this regard, each institution should create protocols/plans for implementing emergency notifications and timely warnings, as well as develop emergency response and evacuation procedures for the campus as a whole.

Implement your program

Emergency communication is not over once the plans are written; implementing and improving the plans occurs on an almost daily basis. However, if you are doing as the Handbook suggests (“say what you do and do what you say”), the implementation step of this process should be relatively straightforward. Use your plans and procedures wisely and accurately, disseminate emergency notifications and timely warnings per your policy statements on each, continue meeting with your Clery Committee, and make changes and revisions as needed.

The Clery Act’s emergency communications requirements: Five steps to compliance

How Everbridge supports the Cleary Act

Multi-modal messaging

Reach students, staff, faculty and other populations via text, voice, email, social media and more.

Gettyimages 1133155870 Everbridge Mobileapp 1000x600

Text opt-in

Campus populations can simply text keywords to receive information, ideal for event based message (e.g. parents’ weekend, sporting events).

Continuous IT Service

Centralized data

Automatically import information from your student records and HR database.

Resident Connection Mobile App

Location-based messaging

Deliver alerts to precise locations with the ability to select or draw a polygon over an affected area.

Accurate Notifications

Consistent and error-free messaging

Ensure notifications are accurate and timely with incident templates and message templates designed around specific events.

Critical Communications

On-demand: The Clery Act’s emergency communications requirements: Five steps to compliance

Speakers: Dr. Steven Goldman and Suzanne Blake MS, CEM, of MIT

Read more

Group of college students walking to class carrying books and wearing backpacks

Prepare, orchestrate & communicate

Speaker: Lynn Daley, Director of Business Continuity, Rochester Institute of Technology

Read more

Anywhere training

Platform that scales and integrates

Authors: Dr. Steven Goldman and Suzanne Blake MS, CEM, of MIT

Read more

Request a Demo