Open Campus Message
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Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,
The safety and security of our campus community is of paramount importance at the UT Health Science Center. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the University moved to strict protocols, which limited access for students, faculty, and staff to certain facilities. This created other challenges as our students, faculty, and staff are not able to access some of the facilities they need during the normal course of business.
As a public institution of higher education, we want to be accessible to our campus community. We balance this by ensuring only authorized individuals have access to our facilities through our UTHSC ID badge system. Leaders of our student government, Faculty Senate, and others have asked us to look at ways to allow for better overall access to the Memphis campus, while continuing to keep everyone safe.
Effective immediately, we will be allowing greater access to buildings across campus for our students, faculty, and staff by appropriately programming your UTHSC ID badges. We are moving to a concept of “open campus via badge access.” This will ensure our students, faculty, and staff can access most buildings Monday through Friday, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, using their UTHSC ID badges. Certain buildings will still have restricted access for justifiable reasons.
As we move toward being a more open and welcoming campus, there are some additional precautions we need to take to ensure the safety and security of everyone. Please take a couple of minutes to review safety tips on our Public Safety on Campus website. The UT Health Science Center has invested in tools over the past several years to allow our students, faculty, and staff to stay connected to our Campus Police on the Memphis campus while enhancing your safety. Students, faculty, and staff have access to two notification systems offered through RAVE Mobile Safety:
- UTHSC Alert: A mass emergency notification system that sends out pertinent information regarding campus safety straight to your devices. The alerts can range from weather precautions to active shooter events. All active UT Health Science Center students and employees are automatically registered to receive UTHSC Alert messages via their UTHSC email and the mobile number (if listed in Banner or IRIS.) However, you can add other mobile numbers, such as those of family members, spouses, partners, etc., and personal email addresses to the UTHSC Alert by logging in with your NetID and password and following the instructions. You can set up your account to receive UTHSC Alert notifications via emails, texts, and/or phone calls.
- Rave Guardian: This app for Android and iOS devices, which can be downloaded via Google Play or the App Store for iPhone or by visiting the UTHSC Alert website (you must enter your UTHSC email address to sign up), provides:
- Two-way communication between you and a UTHSC Police Dispatcher via MMS/SMS text if you want to submit a tip.
- Safety timers that will alert friends, family, and Campus Police if you have not reached your destination by the designated timeframe that you set (GPS will show the Dispatcher the route you took).
- The ability to call Campus Police with your location set if emergency assistance is needed and you are unable to speak.
- The ability to receive notifications within a set mile radius.
We ask all students, faculty, and staff to log in to your UTHSC Alert account to make sure your contact information is updated, as we will be actively sending campus safety messages out through this notification system going forward.
Thank you and a Happy New Year to you and yours.
Raaj Kurapati
Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration,
Chief Operating Officer