Office of Origin: Facilities Management
Responsibility: Executive Director, Facilities management; Executive Director, Marketing and Communication
Date Adopted: 09-23-14
Date Reviewed: 12-11-17, 4-23-24
Last Date Board Approved: 12-11-17, 3-24-21 (C), 8-20-24

Timely Warning

Timely Warnings are communications that are issued to the campus community as soon as pertinent information is available regarding a crime that has occurred in order to aid in the prevention of similar incidents. Timely Warnings are issued case-by-case, based on all the facts surrounding a crime. These warnings advise the College community of the situation and do not include confidential victim information. Factors influencing the decision to release a Timely Warning include the nature of the crime, continuing danger to the Lake Michigan College (LMC) campus community, and/or the risk of compromising law enforcement efforts. They may also include the type of crime, the date, time, and location of the incident, and suspect information, when applicable.

LMC works closely with local law enforcement agencies to inform the College about crimes which may warrant LMC issuing a Timely Warning. A Berrien County Deputy is assigned to the Benton Harbor Campus to assist with informing the College about such crimes. Timely Warnings will be issued by authorized employees as soon as information is available in consultation with the LMC Clery Compliance Officer (CCO), or designee. Information reported in a Timely Warning may not have been investigated or confirmed at the time of the issuance of the warning. Physical descriptions of a suspect will be included in Timely Warnings only if there are enough details to help distinguish the suspect’s appearance from the general population.

Emergency Notification

Emergency Notifications differ from Timely Warnings described above in that Emergency Notifications apply to any immediate threat to the health and safety of students or employees on campus. This may include but is not limited to, certain criminal activity in progress, serious fires, outbreaks of serious illnesses, severe weather conditions, earthquakes, gas leaks, terrorist incidents, armed intruders, bomb threats, civil unrest or rioting, explosions, nuclear power plant emergency, or nearby chemical or hazardous waste spills.

Emergency notifications will be activated by authorized employees immediately upon verification of an incident that meets the above criteria so long as issuance does not compromise efforts to respond to, contain, or otherwise mitigate the emergency.

Communication Systems:

Lake Michigan College uses an automated system to disseminate Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications broadly to the College’s students and employees externally via cell phone text messaging, email and voice mail notifications.

LMC also utilizes an internal emergency notification system that sends ring and text messages to internal phones and to College IP clocks (located in campus hallways) which provide a visual and audio message.

Executive Director, Marketing and Communications, or designee, is responsible for preparing all alerts for dissemination to the College community in coordination with the Clery Compliance Officer and/or Emergency Management Team or Incident Response Team.

Communication systems are tested annually.

References: 

Jeanne Clery Act Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus
Crime Statistics Act of 1998
Clery Act Policy
Emergency Preparedness and Response Policy / Plan