Weeks before U.S. and Israeli strikes hit Iran, a small but determined team at Northeastern University was already on the move. They tracked missile trajectories, monitored flight paths, and worked around the clock to get students and staff out of harm’s way. This is the inside story of how a university security operation became a real-time crisis response unit.
Early Warning Signs Set the Plan in Motion
It started with a single phone call on Thursday, February 26, 2025.
Khushal Safi, Northeastern’s associate vice president for global safety, received a tip from a trusted security contact in the Middle East. The message was clear. A military confrontation was “more likely than not” to happen very soon.
By the next morning, Safi and his team had already activated their crisis response protocols. Within hours, a mass communication blast went out from the university’s global security operations center. Every student, faculty member, and staff member known to be in or near potential conflict zones received urgent alerts through email, text, and WhatsApp.
“We started triggering our response,” Safi told Northeastern’s news team.
The alerts warned recipients that the region could see missile fire at any moment. They urged everyone to prepare to leave if necessary. For a university with experiential learning programs spanning more than 150 countries, including co-op placements and study abroad programs, the stakes were enormous.
A Global University With Students in Every Corner
Northeastern is not a typical campus-bound institution. Its global footprint stretches across all continents, with students, researchers, and faculty traveling constantly for academic work, co-ops, and collaborative projects.
That global reach is a point of pride. But in moments of geopolitical crisis, it becomes a massive logistical challenge.
“Our community is all over the world and they count on us to keep them safe,” Safi said.
Countries directly impacted by the Iran conflict were among those where Northeastern students were actively working and studying. The security team had to quickly identify every university-affiliated traveler in or near the danger zone, assess their individual risk levels, and begin coordinating plans.
Some key facts about Northeastern’s global presence during this period:
- Students participate in experiential learning programs in over 150 countries
- Faculty and staff travel internationally for research, partnerships, and university business
- The global security operations center monitors threats across every time zone
- Communication goes out through multiple channels to ensure no one is missed
Weeks of Preparation Before the First Strike
The February 27 outreach was not the beginning. It was the culmination of weeks of quiet, behind-the-scenes work.
Throughout January and into February, the U.S. military had begun building up a massive presence in the Middle East. Carrier strike groups repositioned. Troop deployments accelerated. Intelligence chatter increased. For anyone watching closely, the signals were impossible to ignore.
Safi’s team was watching very closely.
In the weeks before hostilities escalated, the global safety team had already been calling students and faculty in the region. Sometimes they made multiple calls per day to the same individuals. The goal was simple but critical: coordinate travel and extraction plans for anyone who wanted or needed to leave.
Flight tracking became a daily task. Commercial airline routes in the region were shifting rapidly as airspace restrictions expanded. The team monitored which airports remained operational, which carriers were still flying, and which corridors were safe for civilian travel. When missile activity began, they added trajectory tracking to their workload.
“We were essentially running a small intelligence operation,” one team member described the effort.
Extraction Plans and Real-Time Decision Making
When the joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran finally came, the security team shifted from preparation mode into full crisis management.
The situation on the ground changed by the hour. Airports closed without warning. Airspace restrictions expanded. Ground transportation routes became unpredictable. For students in neighboring countries, even being near a conflict zone carried serious risks from potential retaliatory strikes or regional spillover.
Safi’s team had to make real-time decisions with incomplete information, a challenge familiar to military planners but rarely faced by university administrators.
Their approach followed a clear priority structure:
- Immediate safety first. Ensure every known traveler was in a secure location
- Communication continuity. Maintain contact through backup channels if primary systems failed
- Exit strategy. Identify viable departure routes and coordinate logistics for those ready to leave
- Ongoing monitoring. Track evolving threats and adjust plans accordingly
The team also worked closely with U.S. embassy contacts, private security firms, and local partners on the ground to ensure they had the most current information available.
What This Means for University Security Going Forward
The Iran crisis has exposed a reality that most universities are only beginning to confront. As higher education becomes increasingly global, the responsibility to protect students and staff abroad grows more complex and more urgent.
Northeastern’s response stands out because of its speed and its structure. Having a dedicated global security operations center staffed by professionals like Safi, who brings deep experience in international security, gave the university a significant advantage over institutions that rely on ad hoc responses.
Experts in campus security say this event could become a model for other universities.
The broader conflict has also raised economic concerns beyond the campus. Analysts have predicted that the war in Iran could drive up gas prices and fuel inflation, adding financial pressure on top of the safety concerns facing international programs.
For Northeastern, the lesson is clear. Global education requires global protection. And that protection depends on preparation, not reaction.
As tensions in the Middle East continue to evolve and the long-term consequences of the strikes remain uncertain, Safi and his team are not standing down. They continue to monitor the region, maintain contact with travelers abroad, and update their protocols based on what they learned during the most intense days of the crisis. For the students and faculty who made it home safely, the work of this small, dedicated team made all the difference. If you have thoughts on how universities should handle global security during conflict, share your perspective in the comments below.
