Belmont Alert System Sends False Announcements About Class Cancellation

Series of alert notifications, Emily Garver

Belmont’s Emergency Alerts System sent a series of messages early Tuesday morning to students, faculty and staff about severe weather impacting campus.

They announced classes would be canceled—then they backtracked. 

The campus alert system is designed to quickly share information about potential threats or dangers. To ensure messages are delivered without delay, the patrol supervisor can send them directly—without needing approval from other departments. Alerts are sent by text and email to students, faculty, and staff. 

“Classes for the remainder of the day are cancelled due to extreme wind and associated debris. Stay indoors and use extreme caution if outside,” an alert at 6:18 a.m. read. 

Just four minutes later, a second alert was sent by the patrol supervisor on duty. 

“Classes are still being held today. Classes are not cancelled,” an alert at 6:22 a.m. read. 

Campus Security addressed the alerts just 40 minutes before classes were scheduled to start. 

“In the early morning hours of 9/23/2025, a number of Belmont Alerts were sent in error. We apologize for the confusion. Classes are not cancelled; they will be occurring on their normal schedules,” Campus Security said in an email.  

Although these messages were sent in error, the severe weather alerts sent at 1:44 a.m. and 2:15 a.m. were not mistakenly sent.  

Taylor Gray, the head of training and administration at Campus Security, said “the storm system last night had wind gusts of up to 30mph and reports of downed trees around Nashville. The sergeant believed that, due to this reasoning, it was best for everyone to remain indoors until the storm system passed,” in a statement to the Vision. 

When the storm passed, an all-clear signal was put out at 2:15 a.m., saying, “Thunderstorm has passed. Still light rain.” 

Through the confusion, some students were conflicted with what to do this morning.  

“I first saw it on my friend’s Instagram story. When I went and checked the emails myself, I was super confused-- especially over the one that just said ‘update,’ I thought security got hacked,” sophomore Shae Baumgardner said. 

As Baumgardner questioned the legitimacy of the messages, university officials later clarified the alerts were not the result of a security breach but rather a mistake in the sending process. 

“This was a user error. As you know, Belmont Alerts are not sent very often. We expect all supervisors to keep themselves up to date on the process of sending alerts, but human error can happen,” Taylor stated.  

To prevent this from happening in the future, Campus Security “intends to host additional training sessions with our supervisory staff to ensure everyone is aware of the policy and procedure around sending Belmont Alerts,” Taylor stated. 

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This article was written by Emily Garver