Resources for instructors

Your leadership is critical to keep our campus community safe.

Thank you for encouraging our students to understand what to do in an emergency situation. A few minutes of preparation can help our community members respond faster in an emergency situation.

Here are three things you can do:

  • Make an announcement on the first day of class.
  • Distribute printed information about emergencies (the best way is to attach it to your syllabus).
  • Be prepared to lead students in a crisis situation.

First-day announcement

Please alert your students to the options available in an emergency. We’ve provided the below script as a guide. If you prefer, you may also show a two-minute video available online instead of or in addition to reading the script:

Emergencies can happen anywhere and at any time, so it’s important that we take a minute to prepare for a situation in which our safety could depend on our ability to react quickly. Take a moment to learn the different ways to leave this building. If there’s ever a fire alarm or something like that, you’ll know how to get out and you’ll be able to help others get out. Next, figure out the best place to go in case of severe weather – we’ll need to go to a low-level in the middle of the building, away from windows. And finally, if there’s ever someone trying to hurt us, our best option is to run out of the building. If we cannot do that safely, we’ll want to hide somewhere we can’t be seen, and we’ll have to lock or barricade the door if possible and be as quiet as we can. We will not leave that safe area until we get an Illini-Alert confirming that it’s safe to do so. If we can’t run or hide, we’ll fight back with whatever we can get our hands on. If you want to better prepare yourself for any of these situations, visit police.illinois.edu/safe. Remember you can sign up for emergency text messages at emergency.illinois.edu.

Syllabus attachment

We’ve included these guidelines in a one-page handout which we hope you can distribute when classes begin: