Students asked to update emergency contact information

by Tom Mayhall Rastrelli,

All students will be required to update their information before registering for classes.

No one wants emergencies to happen, but when they do, it’s best to be prepared.

With that in mind, University Registrar Laura Jacobs Anderson and Campus Safety are asking students — both undergraduate and graduate — to update their emergency contact information. It will only take a few minutes to read this announcement and enter the required information.

Why is this important?

Right now, it’s possible for students’ emergency contact information to remain the same from the time they are admitted until after graduation when they enter the alumni database. In a mobile world where people change phone numbers and email addresses on a regular basis, contact information can become outdated quickly.

In an emergency, especially a medical one, seconds matter. You don’t want Campus Safety searching the internet for your contact’s number when a doctor needs to speak to someone on your behalf.

Ross Stout, director of campus safety, says students should regularly update three different categories of contact information.

  1. Emergency-alert contact information: Update your phone number. If a campus-wide emergency happens, you will be contacted via text.
  2. Emergency-contact information: Provide information for someone the university can contact in case you are injured, become ill or experience an emergency and are unable to contact someone yourself. This person could be local or a family member at home.
  3. Confidential missing-student contact: Federal law allows resident students to provide information for someone who should be contacted if a student goes missing for more than 24 hours. This is secured information that can only be accessed by Campus Safety. For a more complete explanation, read the university’s Missing Residential Student Notification Policy.

To update your information, complete these two steps:

  1. Update your emergency-alert information via the Fusser’s Guide using this link. Under “Personal,” click on “Fusser Guide Update.”
  2. Update your emergency-contact and confidential missing-student contact information. If you prefer, you can name different people as your emergency contact and confidential contact.

Starting next semester, all students — resident and nonresident — will be required to update the above information each semester before they register for classes.

“This is about how important you are to us,” Jacobs Anderson says. “Every student has to register for classes, so it’s the one time we can get every student to update their information.”

Jacobs Anderson promises to send students a number of reminders to update their information before registration. Students who don’t update their information before registration will be asked to do so when they log into the registration system.

“At the end of the day, I hope we never need any of this information,” Jacobs Anderson says. “In case that unfortunate situation happens, we want to be able to act.”

For more information, contact the Office of the Registrar or Campus Safety.

Willamette University

University Communications

Address
Waller Hall, Fourth Floor
900 State Street
Salem Oregon 97301 U.S.A.

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