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Letter from Vice President Ken ZickAugust 30, 2007 Dear Reynolda Campus Community, This summer the Crisis Management Team (CMT) of the University has been engaged in a review of emergency preparedness measures prompted by the tragedy at Virginia Tech. This review has largely concentrated on enhancing our emergency preparedness to address emergency communications and response mechanisms. A more expansive review of campus building security will take place throughout the coming academic year. Our goal this summer was to establish enhanced mass notification systems and procedures to alert the community in the event of a significant crisis or emergency. General information about emergency preparedness is located on the University's web site at http://www.wfu.edu/facilities/safety. University Police will be contacting academic and administrative departments throughout the semester to arrange meetings on emergency preparedness practices. Should groups or units wish to schedule a meeting earlier, arrangements for such consultations can be made by contacting Assistant Police Chief Kenneth Overholt (#5057). The Crisis Management Team will sponsor an open meeting on emergency preparedness later this semester. We want to inform you of several developments which require your attention. The University has installed a steam whistle on campus which will be used to alert the community to an imminent emergency of significant risk to the entire campus community. The steam whistle will be operational within the next few weeks. If the steam whistle is activated, you should immediately consult campus information sources, such as the University home page, voice mail, and e-mail. Information regarding a significant emergency will be sent by broadcast voice and e-mail. Announcements will become available on the University web site as soon as practicable. The Reynolda campus will implement an automatic cell phone messaging system later this semester. The University will also implement a system to alert the campus on cable television of an emergency. Enhancements to our emergency preparedness system will also involve upgrades to police radios and web servers. These initial measures have involved considerable expenditures to bring our communications capabilities up to a level of reliability necessary to address a significant crisis. Still, cell phone and web services can and do become tenuous in a crisis of significant proportions. Land lines are more reliable during such events. Later this semester, we will want to test the effectiveness of new CMT protocols and notification systems. The community will be alerted well in advance of this test. Implementation of this system will require capturing the cell phone numbers of graduate and professional students, as well as faculty and staff numbers. Undergraduate students already are required to supply their cell phone numbers through the WIN system at the start of the semester. During the middle of September, faculty and staff will be asked to log onto the WIN system to register their cell phone number, if they have one and choose to make it available. Graduate and professional students will be asked to make this contact information available through WIN by the end of September. This information will be used only to contact a person in an emergency. Of course, one may choose to include it in the internal WIN directory listing. In developing our enhanced notification processes, University staff have reviewed recent literature including governmental reports, consulted with other universities, met with vendors, attended conferences, and studied the experience of Virginia Tech in responding to its tragedy. Our work has extended beyond communication mechanisms to encompass reviewing policies and practices for addressing workplace violence and troubled individuals, enhanced Resident Advisor training, and monitoring adherence to firearms laws on campus. University Police, together with leaders of the Crisis Management Team, also participated in training on responding to school and workplace violence conducted by the Winston-Salem Police this summer. Among the many lessons derived from the Virginia Tech tragedy, one of the most important may be the active vigilance and involvement of the community in identifying problematic situations and alerting appropriate University personnel. Depending on the situation, University Police, Human Resources, counselors in the University Counseling Center, student health care providers, the Dean of Student Services, and the Vice-President of Student Life can be helpful in providing advice and assistance. Our recent efforts represent a beginning point for continuing study. We are continuing to investigate internal building notification systems, the expanded use of video monitors, and outside voice notification systems. As previously noted, building security systems are being evaluated as well. The utility of these systems, privacy concerns, and the technical complexity of implementation require further study. In developing an enhanced emergency preparedness plan, we have been mindful of the wide variety of emergencies that a campus may encounter. Each emergency is situation dependent. A response to a bomb threat will differ from a chemical spill. A tornado alert calls for different instructions than a fire. There is no set of standard instructions for an emergency. The emergency preparedness web site provides advice on steps to take in various scenarios. We appreciate your assistance and cooperation as we implement these new measures to better assure the safety and security of our campus. Sincerely, Ken Zick |
