The alert system serves as a mass notification system to warn and notify students of potentially dangerous situations on campus.   

According to the MSU Alert website, the system includes text, email and computer notifications. It also includes the SafeMSU app, MSU Green Light emergency phones and an outdoor siren system. 

Students and staff have received emergency notifications before, but the sirens are a new addition to the emergency alerts.

Alerts have included aggravated assault, thefts and weather statements. 

The system will not use phone calls during the test, however, they could be used in an emergency as a way to alert the MSU community. 

MSU Police and Public Safety spokesperson Dana Whyte said that the "department, along with Student Life and Engagement, plans to do another social media push on Monday to inform the campus." 

MSU has a mass notification system due to the Clery Act, requiring colleges and universities to issue notifications in the form of timely warnings or emergency notifications.

According to the MSU Alert website, timely warnings are considered "serious or a continuing threat to students and employees," while emergency notifications are "issued upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees occurring on campus."

All MSU students, faculty and staff are automatically opted into the mass notification system. Others can receive these notifications by downloading the SafeMSU app or testing MSUALERT to 888777.

Editor's note: Following the publication of this story, students and faculty received an email from MSU DPPS Vice President and Chief Safety Officer Marlon C. Lynch notifying them of the campus alert system Monday afternoon.