ABSTRACT
Crisis management requires an ongoing process of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, recovery, and learning in a never-ending cycle. When new to a campus, some staff will set out immediately to organize and stratify the various components of the institution and community, whereas others may observe from a distance, gathering information and forming perceptions before getting down to the task of developing a plan. How administrators go about doing this has as much to do with their personal style as the culture of the campus on which they work and reside. Preexisting plans that have been gathering dust or have been tested repeatedly, impending seasonal concerns about weather, recent incidents at an institution or similar institutions, or new leadership at an institution are all factors that affect how quickly this issue is addressed and when an institution will begin the process of developing an effective crisis management plan. On today's university campus, the development of emergency preparedness managers has institutionalized these plans for many and guide the development, oversight, and review of crisis plans in a regular cycle, keeping the issue at the forefront of the campus operations.
As varied as people can be, the cultures of campuses are also distinct and unique and will dictate both how administrators begin to plan and what form the final product will take. Small campuses with stable staff and relatively minimal variations in facilities and programs may function with a greater informality due to the scope of the plan. In contrast, the institutional leadership or staff in key positions may have a high need for formal structure and require detailed and sophisticated protocols that guide what appears to be every conceivable incident. Larger institutions may have a history of large-scale planning and have the ubiquitous three-ring notebooks and web sites to prove it, or they may be so large and complex that they have been unable to focus their energy into a comprehensive plan and instead function with a series of protocols developed by departments and programs, linked by an informal structure that relies heavily on personal expertise and contact between key individuals. This loose structure on complex campuses begs for an allocation of resources into a formal office structure with sufficient institutional support to impact the campus through regular training and updating of developed plans.
There is no fill-in-the-blank crisis management plan outline or turnkey software solution that can adequately address the characteristics and culture of the campus community. When arriving at a new institution or when beginning the process of developing a crisis management system, it is important to have a clear understanding of the culture of the campus and how it both plans and uses plans. Knowing “who” you are as a campus is a critical first step in determining “what” you will become as the planning process proceeds. Where you end up on the formal–informal continuum may change the format of the plan or the sense of urgency felt, but it does not affect the overriding need for each institution to have a plan in place and in a usable form.
In studies of campus preparedness to respond to crises (Catullo, 2008; Scott, 1999; Zdziarski, 2001), approximately 85% of the institutions he indicated that they had some type of written crisis management plan. Although this bodes well in general for higher education, it still means that about 15% of institutions have no plan for responding to a campus crisis. The existence of a written crisis management plan is perhaps the single most important crisis management tool a campus can have. It is the foundation and framework from which a campus will operate. Having a written plan establishes a level of clarity and consistency in how the campus addresses a crisis and avoids confusion or debate on key issues that might arise in the heat of the moment. Standing in the middle of a crisis is obviously not the time to debate key response procedures or even develop a plan. When involved in a crisis, it is the moment to implement whatever plan the institution has taken the time to establish. Without even a modicum of planning, a campus's ability to respond will be limited and handicapped.
