The University of Wisconsin Police Department launched a new addition to their emergency response protocol — a “panic-button” that dispatchers can use to trigger a WiscAlert for all students and staff in the case of an active threat situation on campus, according to a release from UWPD.

The button will be tested March 27 at 11 a.m., while most students are on spring break, to minimize disturbances to classwork.

Though UWPD hopes it will never have to be used, the button is an important time saving measure, UW spokesperson Marc Lovicott said.

Currently, a designated UWPD staff member must log into their work computer and type out a message in order to send a WiscAlert. Lovicott said if the person on call is asleep in the middle of the night and an active threat occurs, it could take several minutes to get the message to the campus community.

With the new system, dispatchers can notify students and staff much more quickly, allowing people to take action instantly, and giving UWPD more time to send detailed instructions, Lovicott said.

Though it’s unknown exactly how much time the button would save, any time saved in an active threat is potentially life-saving, Lovicott said.

“When we look at needing to alert our community about an active threat that’s currently occurring in which [the community] needs to take action to protect their life, a minute can feel like an eternity — and is an eternity — and that means lives could be lost,” Lovicott said.

Lovicott said UWPD assesses active threat situations that occur in other colleges and universities to understand how each situation could have been mitigated, information which is used to streamline UW’s emergency response plan.

After an assessment of a recent active threat situation at a university, UWPD determined that the university’s emergency message output was delayed, and that a physical “panic-button” would help prevent such a delay at UW. 

“After we explored it more and learned that there were other success stories out there. We decided it would be a great tool for us to bring on board to help close that gap in information, getting that information to our community,” Lovicott said.

The button, service provided by Altertus Technologies, will cost UW $10,000 annually, Lovicott said later in an emailed statement to The Badger Herald. UWPD has been testing the technology privately since last year and plans to officially implement the button in fall 2024.