Planning for Battle
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By David Plummer and Wallace Johnson
The "fog" generated during a campus emergency can be diminished through careful planning and sound management.
South Texas College, McAllen, is implementing the latest communications and technology resources at its five campus locations across Hidalgo and Starr counties to ensure that it is prepared for a crisis.
The concept of “the fog of war” brings to mind the chaos of smoke-covered battlefields, along with the randomness inherent in any rapidly developing situation. The term is used most often to illustrate the difficulty military commanders have getting accurate information while a battle is being fought. Sketchy and often inaccurate information obtained through the confusion of battle can lead to decisions based on imperfect information.
These conditions may be similar to the stresses administrators experience during crises on their campuses. They strain to get an accurate picture of what has just occurred so they can make the best decision about safeguarding students, faculty and staff. An ideal solution would alleviate the “fog of war” and allow administrators to share information with a push of a button. New technologies may help, but no single method will alleviate all issues pertaining to imperfect information in a crisis.
Identify constituencies
School and university administrators first must determine the groups with whom they will be interacting during a crisis and the best means to communicate with these groups.
Much like military commanders, they must use multiple methods to develop a multi-channel emergency notification system (ENS) that will enable information-sharing during and after a crisis with the affected groups.
Administrators will need to contact students, faculty and staff during a crisis. However, communicating with these groups can be complicated; when a crisis occurs, some may be on campus and some may be elsewhere. Schools and universities also are likely to have contractors, vendors or community members on campus. All those on a campus will have their own preferences about how they would like to receive emergency communications.
Leaders must determine the timeframe needed to get in touch with their constituencies. Some groups will need to be notified immediately; others may have longer time windows, from one hour to several days. For instance, in the case of an active shooter on campus, communicating immediately with all constituencies is vital. A natural disaster like a hurricane that is several days away has a longer time window for emergency communication. In these types of emergencies, a message received a day or two after being sent still is effective.
Take your pick
Decisionmakers also must determine where people will be and the methods, high- and low-tech, that can be used to communicate with them. Currently, text messaging seems to be the most popular method referred to when discussing an ENS. Text messaging can reach large numbers of people quickly, but it may not be the best method for every communication need. Obtaining accurate mobile phone numbers for every faculty and staff member and student can be difficult. Administrators should evaluate the effectiveness of other communication methods such as e-mail and voicemail. Even low-tech methods, such as posting flyers on bulletin boards, should be explored.
When deciding which kinds of systems to put into place, administrators need to consider the varying support requirements that each method requires. These requirements can range from relatively inexpensive methods such as making copies of flyers for people to post on campus, to high-end servers with fiber-optic backbones running throughout the campus. A cross-functional team should be involved in selecting the communication methods to ensure that a particular method is suitable. Campus security, information technology staff and administrators need to be on the same page when deciding to acquire a system — particularly for those that require more human and capital resources.
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