Emergency plans in place

by Elle Haines
Last Updated: July 22, 2009

With crime rates on the rise, some students are concerned about their safety.

With the memory of recent campus shootings across the nation in mind, Wichita State senior Tiesha Stewart said that her main concern is shootings.

“And random attacks because it is an open campus and anyone can be there," she said.

Along with the Shocker Alert System, The Wichita State Wireless Emergency Mass Notification System, Web alerts and KMUW are all working together to keep the WSU community informed.

WSU also has an emergency operations plan.

Laid out in the 46-page plan are levels of emergency responses, plan activation and command structure. It generally looks like any emergency plan that most companies would have in this day and age; one that prepares for the worst but hopes for the best.

The difference is that the WSU emergency operations plan has 11 different committees, teams and members that are involved in the prevention, assessment and crisis management that comes with preparing for different kinds of emergencies.

“I'm not super worried about any kind of crime on campus," junior Sarah Young said. “I always leave in the day time and there are plenty of other people around."

At the top of the chain is the Crisis Management Team, which is chaired by Vice President and General Counsel Ted Ayres.

According to the policies and procedures manual online, this team works with many local, state and even national doctrines and methods, such as Homeland Security directives, in order to keep the WSU community safe.

On top of the training programs given to all university employees, the testing of emergency equipment on a regular basis and the evaluation of situation-specific drills that evaluate the usefulness of the policies, the Crisis Management Team is supported by five other committees and teams.

The Environmental Health and Safety Director, Glendon Miller, chairs the Safety Committee.

This committee provides planning, training and evaluation reports to the Crisis Management Team and they give direction to and oversee the building coordinator program.

Building coordinators create and regularly evaluate plans for campus buildings and building occupants in emergency situations, according to the EOP.

Next is the Behavior Intervention Team, which is chaired by Cheryl Adams, dean of students.

The EOP states, “This team coordinates the university response to concerns that a student, staff member or faculty member may be engaged in behavior that creates danger to self or others."

The Behavior Intervention Team also evaluates the response and outcome to emergency situations and then sends a report to the Crisis Management Team.

Barth Hague, the associate vice president of university relations, chairs the Communications Team, which develops and updates crisis communications plans and maintains a flow of communication with the Crisis Management Team.

Other groups involved in the EOP are the Health Risk Assessment Committee and the Business Continuity Committee.

These committees have been established to evaluate, prepare and assess emergency situations so that students, faculty and staff will feel safe while on WSU campus.

“I feel safe on the Wichita State campus, freshman Regan Johnston said. “I do not feel threatened or worried I will be a victim of crime."
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