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Safety at the University

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus is like a city within a city. It has its own professional police force, its own building inspectors, and its own environmental health and safety department. It works closely with local law enforcement agencies and state and county law enforcement, as well as with municipal fire departments, to ensure a quick, timely response to emergencies on campus.

The University's 911 dispatch center operates all day, every day, and over 900 security cameras are monitored centrally around the clock. There are 200 yellow phones for emergency, medical, and service-related calls, and twenty blue-light emergency call-boxes located throughout campus. An escort service is available every day, around the clock. To contact an escort, call the Security Monitor Program at 612-624-WALK (9255).

University of Minnesota police respond to incidents on campus. The University has agreements with other local law enforcement agencies to provide back up assistance in times of need. The Minneapolis and St. Paul fire departments respond to fires and health emergencies on the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses, respectively.

A committee of senior administrators routinely assesses safety risks and leads efforts to mitigate them. A variety of University departments are involved in planning for and responding to emergencies.

In the event of an emergency on campus, the University uses multiple methods to notify the campus community and general public about the nature of the emergency, how to respond, class or event cancellations, and of campus closure.

Those methods include information in the media; on the U’s home page at www.umn.edu; through TXT-U, the U’s text message emergency notification system, e-mail, tone-alert radios, and on-the-ground public safety personnel.

During an emergency, the University's goal is to communicate first with those most immediately impacted; people who need to evacuate or seek medical treatment, for example.

Together we can make the University safer and ensure that when emergencies or accidents happen their impact is minimized, and we can return to our activities as quickly as possible.