The heavy snowfall last week had many students tweeting about school closings and class cancellations, misleading other students to believe that Grand Valley State University had called an official snow day.

“We noticed a bit of confusion on social media (especially Twitter) among students about campus being closed today,” Leah Twilley of News and Information Services said Tuesday. “A tweet that was posted last night said classes were canceled, which was not true and I think some students took it to be true.”

Twilley advised GVSU community members to avoid confusion about campus emergencies by first waiting for notifications from the Emergency Alert System before believing news on social media sites.

“Messages about closings, cancellations and emergencies will then be tweeted from the university’s official Twitter accounts only, GVSU and GV_Now,” Twilley said. “To avoid confusion, tweets about cancellations and closings that come from accounts other than those two should not be taken as accurate information.”

Twilley noted that social media sites are neither the only nor principal mediums to deliver news of school closings.

“Social media is not the primary source of confirmation of closings, but it is in addition to the alert system,” Twilley said. “Students, faculty and staff members should assume the university is open unless they hear otherwise on the radio or TV, or have been notified via the alert system.”

GVSU community members can sign up for official messages regarding school closings by visiting www.gvsu.edu/emergencycontact.

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