Why wasn’t there an emergency alert available on Mount Royal University’s MRU app during Monday’s “shelter in place” advisory?

That’s a question being asked by staff and students at the university following the decision by Calgary police to issue the advisory after reports of a man being seen with a knife on campus.

Calgary police issued the “shelter in place” advisory around 2:45 p.m. after they were able to confirm through CCTV that there was someone who walked onto campus with a knife.

CPS estimated between 30 and 40 officers from all over the city responded to the call.

“We just saw a bunch of cops running towards us and they were carrying large rifles and it was pretty scary, and we asked them what was going on, they didn’t give us an answer,” said MRU student Ahmer Khan. “The guns were like this big — it was like the size of the leg — it was crazy like I’ve never seen anything like this these big guns.”

Kyla Isidro was in the Arts building at the time.

“We received an email from MRU saying that there was a person and they described the person — and the details on what this person was wearing. I downloaded the MRU Now app, which informs students and staff about what’s going on on campus. If there’s any emergency going on, we’re informed on the app, but we didn’t receive any notifications,” said Isidro.

The students who spoke to Global News also said there was no mention in the email that the person had a weapon.

“When we went out of the hallway, the Calgary Police Services were there and had told us we can leave the classroom, but we didn’t receive any more clarifications other than that,” added Isidro.

The “shelter in place” advisory was lifted when police determined the person with the knife was an MRU employee who was working as a chef and had what appeared to be a chef’s knife in his possession that he was carrying into work.

While police said, after the shelter in place advisory was lifted, that there was never a threat to public safety, concerns have been raised by about the university’s response, with the staff and students who spoke to Global News asking why they didn’t get any notification on the MRU app.

“I was not on campus, however, the concern I have is that a lot of my colleagues who were on campus were the ones that were notifying one another through either text messages or social media,” said Kelly Sundberg, a professor of criminology at MRU.

“If it were an actual threat — God forbid — it demonstrated that Mount Royal University is woefully equipped to address and to respond, to notify individuals, to tell the community one, either don’t come to campus or shelter in place or get off campus sort of thing. The communication was very poor,” said Sundberg who added, “I did check the app and it said nothing.”

Asked for a response to the concerns, MRU told Global News in an email, “MRU did its best to respond, but face challenges relating to the complex nature of the incident and some of the tools used.”

The university claims it did send “several messages” through the MRU Now app as well as through email and social media.

However, the statement said, “MRU Now can go into “hibernation,” or be off-loaded from devices, if not used regularly. We are asking all employees and students to take a moment to download MRU Now or check their notification settings to allow notifications from the app.”

While the email didn’t provide any information on what university administration will be doing to address the concerns, other than asking people to update the app, it did say, “we continually review our internal processes and responses related to security incidents.”

Sunberg said he hopes the incident is a wake-up call for university administration.

“This just shows that security is not on the front of mind of leaders and it should be. If it were a mass casualty event, there would be liability. There’s also security negligence.”

“This is the health and safety issue,” said Sundberg. “We have over 15,000 people on that campus on a given day. We had a lot of young people. We have a lot of vulnerable people, and to have this demonstrated is nothing short of highly concerning and deserves overlook by the province.”

The shelter in place advisory was lifted around 5 p.m. on Monday, just over two hours after it was issued.

However, the investigation continues and police say the person suspect, who was eventually determined to have the knife in their possession, could face mischief and weapons charges.

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