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Dear all, Yesterday’s tragic events on the campus of Virginia Tech University have shocked and saddened us all. Random acts of violence such as this are among the most difficult to prepare for across the full spectrum of threats that we and other college and university campuses face. For every threat we can imagine, emergency management planning involves thoughts about mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery from particular incidents. Even on a small campus like Colorado College, we have many people distributed in many buildings in an environment that is open, welcoming, and highly accessible by design. This presents a very difficult security challenge for us – there is little we can do to mitigate or defend against a random act of violence in such an environment. However, we can and do have plans in place to respond to such incidents as described below. Early information from the Virginia Tech case does point to two critical elements of any response plan: 1) the command and control system, and 2) the communication system. The heart of our command, control, and communication system is a notification chart that was established in 2003. It identifies our campus security office as the first point of contact for any campus incident because it is staffed 24 hours per day throughout the year. It also identifies (by name and various phone numbers) “incident response leaders” – local campus people who will provide the on-the-scene response to incidents of any kind. Finally, it identifies an institutional response team that would be assembled to lead our command and control activities in the case of a continuing problem, a problem with impact beyond the campus, life threatening illness, or death. In the case of an act of violence, the first call from our security office would be to the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD). Our security staff and campus leaders would work closely with the local authorities, who would assume control of the situation as soon as they arrived on campus. In addition to phone communication among the people named on our notification chart, we have the ability to send flash e-mail messages to all faculty, staff, and students and, because we have a relatively small campus, our security staff, residential life staff, and incident response teams can and would serve as messengers during an incident. Additional layers of communication that we are now exploring include: text messaging to emergency contact cell phones, an outsourced autodial phone service for emergencies, and sirens. Also, since Colorado College depends on the CSPD for law enforcement response in the event of an act of violence on campus, we plan to explore a joint training exercise with them to insure the speed and coherence of our response. While, as noted above, there is little we can do to prevent a random act of violence, all members of our community can be alert and mindful about the possibility of such events, can contact our security office if they witness any suspicious activity, and can aid in any evacuation or lockdown procedures that are directed by either an on-campus team or the local authorities. We are planning a series of on-campus meetings to distribute this information and to help us all recover from yesterday’s horrific events. Please keep our colleagues at Virginia Tech in your thoughts and prayers in the days ahead. Sincerely, Richard F. Celeste |
