How to Prepare your Campus for a Crisis

Karine Joly of Collegewebeditor.com  wrote a short blog with five steps for preparing your campus for an crisis. Here is a repost of the five tips:

 

1. Make sure the chief communication officer of your institution is part of your emergency team.
2. Include in your crisis plan your institution response to different possible scenarios. Define the type of communication channels to be use for the different situations and prepare the notification templates for each. In case of a crisis, you’ll be able to update and send these templates in minutes.
3. Practice, practice, practice. Train your emergency team to assess, evaluate and make decisions. Review and edit your crisis plan with what you learn from your drills.
4. If a crisis happens, send your alert notifications via several communication channels (phone, cell phone, email, text-messages, loud speaker, PA systems, etc.) and post the notification on the homepage of your website.
5. Use your website as the main hub for your communications with your campus community, parents, media representatives and the rest of the world throughout and after the crisis.

 

My 2 cents on this would be what about also having a Facebook app that flashes red when an emergency at your school is announced? 

Comments

[Brian]

The University of Pittsburgh has implemented a text messaging system, but what I've noticed is that we haven't done a good enough job about telling our students about this new feature. I myself have taken time out of my freshman seminar class to show my students how to input their cell phone numbers; but not enough instructors or staff members on campus have been doing such things.

I think it's great for a campus to have a system in place, but what good is it if we aren't doing our part to make our students an active part of it?!

Just my .02

[Kevin Prentiss]

Brian - I agree. I was recently at Alvernia college in PA and they had made it mandatory as part of enrollment.

Why wouldn't this become the norm? It seems like a simple hop for the school.

I think they were using E2, which, as I recall was a paid service that only messages in emergencies.

I think the challenge is significantly different if it is a "free" emergency text solution that sends students coupons. Seems like the university would then be in the awkward position of forcing students to opt in to marketing. (I think this is awkward even if the students can opt out at a future date. which is what the companies all claim makes it okay.)

[Sara Evans]

What is stopping students from putting in fake cell numbers? Is there some kind of verification emails back that makes sure they opted in? Seems like if they just submit a number online, they are going to put a fake one in.