At a party associated with UK’s Theta Chi fraternity chapter, 11 UK students sustained non-life-threatening injuries as a result of a shooting. The university’s official emergency notification system, UK Alerts, sent a message at 12:02 a.m. Thursday.

The message, which read “Shots fired in the area of University Avenue. Avoid the area. More at www.uky.edu/alerts,” remains the only communication sent via UK Alerts regarding the incident.

At 12:03 a.m., the website linked to the message read “No Active Alerts”. The status of the webpage remained unchanged as of 10 p.m. Thursday evening, providing no further information about the referenced shooting.

The entire purpose of a system such as UK Alerts is to keep people in the know. That is not possible if the people in charge refuse to disperse information when it becomes available.

While other details about the shooting were shared on various social media platforms by UKPD and UK administration, sharing pressing details via UK Alerts would more efficiently share information quickly, which is the entire purpose of the system.

Telling the UK community emergency information will be shared through UK Alerts, and then failing to post timely updates, created an unnecessary obstacle for those who needed information the most.

In situations that call for the use of UK Alerts, time is precious. The authority of UK should feel a responsibility to keep their students safe on campus and at university associated events.

Updates such as police presence, dispatching of emergency vehicles, organizations associated with the party and the ultimate resolution of Wednesday nights events are all details that could and should have been shared in a timely manner.

These notifications would have allowed students close to the affected location to make well-informed decisions in an unsafe environment.

While there is no way administrators could have prevented the catastrophic happenings of Wednesday evening, information could have been shared quicker and more efficiently by leaders in the UK community.