What to Know About CofC’s New Cougar Alerts and Other Notifications

The College of Charleston is now using the Everbridge platform to deliver Cougar Alert emergency notifications to all members of the campus community and others through email, text and phone.

The College advises faculty, staff, students and community members to create a new contact on their smart phone so that it will recognize future notifications:

Text messages will be displayed as coming from 898.61.

The phone number for voice calls will display as 843.805.5507.

For those without CofC credentials – such as parents, family members and neighbors – who opt in to receive text alerts, the display number is 333.111.

The College has also established a new, tiered warning system to differentiate Cougar Alerts from other types of campus notifications delivered through the Everbridge system. The three types of notifications are:

Cougar Alert: These alerts are reserved for major emergencies or life-threatening situations occurring on or near campus.

Campus Advisory: These advisories are intended to provide information about events or issues on campus that warrant notification but that do not pose an immediate danger to health and safety. Examples include case updates on public health matters (e.g., COVID-19), facilities-related issues and isolated incidents that do not rise to the level of a Cougar Alert.

Community Advisory: These advisories are issued for major incidents, crimes or public safety issues occurring off campus. Examples may include flooding, major structure fires, major crimes and widespread street closures or traffic delays that may impact access to or departure from campus.

All the information above, including additional information and instructions related to Cougar Alerts and Everbridge, can be found at emergency.cofc.edu/cougaralert/.