Communication and Emergency Preparedness Plans

This group focuses on strategic issues and tactical challenges that affect IT communications in planning for, during mitigation of, and following an emergency in higher education. Discussion topics include telecommunication infrastructure and electronic services, campus coordination, the role of IT staff, campus drills, funding, security and safety, community awareness, vendors, and information and network policies. The group examines policies, best practices, and lessons learned.

This presentation will explore the challenges that UNC–Wilmington encountered in providing for the broadcast and communication of emergency notification alerts to the at-large campus community. Since the methods of delivery can be diverse (siren, cable broadcast, internet, e-messaging), collaboration across departments was necessary to create this well-rounded solution.

Saint Peter’s College responded to a bomb threat and evacuated the campus safely and efficiently thanks to close integration of human systems with IT.

(Wally) Czerniak was attending a conference in Arizona where he was learning, among other things, about emergency-notification systems that can send text messages to cellphones - a method that a growing number of colleges have set up since the shootings last spring at Virginia Tech. But Mr. Czerniak still isn't sure whether such a system would have done much good in keeping people on campus updated as the crisis unfolded if it had been in place at Northern Illinois.

The Governor's Task Force on Campus Safety is focused on ensuring the safety of college campuses across Wisconsin. At the direction of Governor Jim Doyle, the Task Force is reviewing and compiling criteria for developing best practices from universities, colleges, and other higher education institutions in Wisconsin and across the nation. This information will be submitted to the governor and will serve as a resource for college administrators, law enforcement officers, and emergency preparedness officials.

On April 16, 2007, a Virginia Tech student shot and killed 32 faculty and students and wounded 25 others before killing himself in an academic building on campus. The university is still dealing with the aftermath of the incident and expects it to be an ongoing concern for the foreseeable future. This session will encapsulate summaries of the IT-related lessons learned including the impact on the university's communication system; the notification issue; radio communications interoperability; the sheer logistics of accommodating the communications infrastructure and control center needs for a variety of emergency responders and law enforcement; identity management and privacy; and data preservation and computer forensics. Overriding all of these issues is the question of federal, state, and local policies and ways in which policy issues were encountered, confronted, and managed.

In the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, colleges and universities across the country are reviewing their emergency preparedness plans and evaluating their ability to quickly notify constituents in crisis situations. Networked technologies (posting notices on Web sites, e-mailing information, and sending text messages to cell phones) are among the most promising solutions. As campuses explore options for their emergency communication plan, they must also consider infrastructure and policy and procedural components. This session will provide an overview of the strategies for emergency notifications of students, employees, and visitors, as well as a context and resources for campus emergency preparedness planning.