Our commitment to students, faculty and staff is to provide a safe learning environment. When any incident occurs that potentially impacts our educational mission, we have to be prepared to inform, engage and execute. We have an emergency operations process in place with specific actions to be taken. While we are thankful that there was not a credible threat on our campus and our students were always safe, there is always an opportunity to assess our actions and consider potential changes to our procedures.

In retrospect, we should have locked down the campus when the report came in of a possible suspicious person in Fletcher Hall and Chattanooga Police Department responded in force. We will review the decisions that were made and decide whether our assessment process is adequate. In addition, our information systems and processes will be reviewed to ensure there are coordinated, timely and accurate messages across the campus and in the community.

We take seriously the safety of our UTC family and being the reliable source of information for all things that impact our campus. The quick action by law enforcement agencies for the city, county, the FBI and UTC was well coordinated and effective in assuring the safety of our campus.