University Risk Management and Insurance Association (URMIA)

From this organization:

Goals: To protect the reputation and resources, both human and financial, of institutions of higher education through the incorporation of sound risk management practices into all aspects of their operations; to make available the best and complete risk management information for institutions of higher education; and to provide excellent professional development opportunities for the risk management professionals in higher education.

International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA)

The following organization is either wholly dedicated toward certain kinds of disaster and crisis plans in higher education or are engaged in meaningful related initiatives.

The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) advances public safety for educational institutions by providing educational resources, advocacy, and professional development services. IACLEA is the leading voice for the campus public safety community. IACLEA was created by eleven college and university security directors who met in November of 1958 at Arizona State University to discuss job challenges and mutual problems, and to create a clearinghouse for information and issues shared by campus public safety directors across the country. Today, IACLEA membership represents more than 1,200 colleges and universities in 20 countries. In addition to the colleges and universities, which are institutional members, IACLEA has 2,200 individual memberships held by campus law enforcement staff, criminal justice faculty members, and municipal chiefs of police.

Campus Safety, Health, and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA)

The following organization is either wholly dedicated toward certain kinds of disaster and crisis plans in higher education or are engaged in meaningful related initiatives.

CSHEMA provides information sharing opportunities, continuing education, and professional fellowship to people with environmental health and safety responsibilities in the education and research communities. CSHEMA leads by listening to its members, organizing their efforts, developing leadership that responds to the needs of the education and research communities, and striving for excellence in everything it does.

Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Communications & Marketing

The following organization is either wholly dedicated toward certain kinds of disaster and crisis plans in higher education or are engaged in meaningful related initiatives.

Welcome to the Communications and Marketing section of the CASE Network. Whether you are a public relations counselor or a market researcher, a media relations officer or a periodical editor, a campus events coordinator or a speechwriter, here you will find a wide array of regularly updated resources designed to enhance your work and to advance your career.

EDUCAUSE Connect: Business Continuity Planning

From this article:

Business continuity (BC) can be defined as an institution's ability to maintain or restore its business and academic services when some circumstance disrupts normal operations. BC involves disaster recovery, the many activities that are necessary to restore the institution to operational status after a disaster. BC planning is an institution-wide responsibility and needs a champion at the executive level in order to make progress. A collaborative effort is needed to do a robust risk assessment, to prioritize what business processes need to be restored in what order, and to plan and practice the steps needed to restore operations back to a working level after an event. This integrated approach involves every department understanding and preparing for the role it will play in keeping the entire institution functional in a crisis and operational long-term. BC involves more than just traditional administrative information systems recovery; it also means planning for contingencies for teaching and research in the event those systems on which these services depend are inoperable. Academic sustainability needs to be at the forefront of BC planning. Recent incidents such as Katrina have brought BC planning into sharp focus for higher education institutions.

Building a Disaster-Resistant University

From this article:

In the last decade, disasters have affected university and college campuses with high frequency. They sometimes cause death and injury and always impose monetary losses and disruption of the institution's teaching, research and public service. Damage to buildings and infrastructure and interruption to the institutional mission result in significant losses that can be measured by faculty and student departures, decreases in research funding, and increases in insurance premiums. These losses can be substantially reduced or eliminated through comprehensive pre-disaster planning and mitigation actions. 'Building A Disaster-Resistant University' is both a how-to guide and a distillation of the experiences of six universities and colleges that have been working to become more disaster-resistant. This guide provides basic information designed for institutions just getting started, as well as concrete ideas, suggestions, and practical experiences for institutions that have already begun to take steps to becoming more disaster-resistant.

Business Continuity Planning Model from NACUBO (DOC)

From this article in NACUBO online:

How would your educational institution handle a similar situation? Suppose a natural disaster—an earthquake, flood, fire, or tornado—occurred tomorrow. Or, what would happen if your institution experienced a widespread technology failure or became the target of terrorists? In the wake of such a traumatic event, does your institution have a plan in place that would ensure the business continuity of its operations? This model provides you with guidelines for developing such a plan. It grew out of the work of CampusRelief, a joint effort sponsored by the American Council on Higher Education (ACE) and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). Established in September 2005, the short-term CampusRelief project provided an Internet-based community and resource center for institutions, faculty, staff, and students struggling to recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

How Prepared Are America's Colleges and Universities for Major Crises?

From this article by Ian I. Mitroff, Michael A. Diamond, and C. Murat Alpaslan, initially published in Change magazine:

The purpose of this article is to outline a set of recommendations to college and university leaders and governing bodies on how to develop crisis-management systems to ensure that their institutions are as well prepared as possible for a wide range of crises. These recommendations are based, in part, on crisis-management programs developed for various business organizations by one of the authors. Since there is virtually no national research that details how colleges and universities have prepared for such events, we also conducted a survey of colleges and universities to determine the level of crisis-management preparation among American colleges and universities. The results of that survey also inform our recommendations.

Lessons From the Front: The Presidential Role in Disaster Planning and Response

From this article:

This monograph by SCUP President Sal Rinella was published in early 2007 and distributed electronically and via hard copy to every college and university president in the United States. Designed to live in the briefcase or backpack of those presidents, it is a summation of lessons learned by a number of college and university presidents who have led their campuses through the aftermath of major disasters.

In New Orleans, Move-In Day (Again)

From this article:

Across St. Charles Avenue from Loyola University New Orleans, the grounds of Audubon Zoo were littered with branches and other debris on Sunday, but the university's green spaces were pristine. And as students moved into their residence halls on a hot late summer afternoon, it seemed like any other such day on any other campus—except that, for those at Loyola and many other universities in the Gulf Coast region, they were moving back into their dorms, two weeks after the real 'move-in' day of the 2008–2009 academic year. Loyola's students and employees dispersed to Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and elsewhere late last month as Hurricane Gustav threatened to lash New Orleans with 100-mile per hour winds. Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did tens of billions of dollars of damage to homes, businesses and institutions in New Orleans, catching many officials off-guard, administrators at Loyola and other area colleges took no chances this time around.

Power Outages After Hurricane Ike Will Keep Campuses Closed

From this article:

College officials in Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, and other parts of the Gulf Coast spent the weekend slogging through flooded and debris-strewn campuses, trying to assess how much damage Hurricane Ike had wreaked and when they could safely resume classes. . . . Even though many campuses appear to have escaped serious structural damage, their ability to resume classes this week may be hampered by widespread power outages in the region. That was the case earlier this month when Hurricane Gustav interrupted the fall semester for thousands of students in Louisiana and bordering areas of Texas.

Midwest Colleges Struggle to Bounce Back From Hurricane's Fury

From this article:

A few days after the remnants of Hurricane Ike swept through the Midwest after pounding coastal Texas and Louisiana, colleges and universities across Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and other states in the region continued to be hamstrung on Tuesday by wide-ranging power outages and flooding. . . . Ohio colleges are trying to clear debris and restore power after the state saw hurricane-force winds over the weekend as Ike made its way through the Ohio Valley. Repairs to the electrical grid could be delayed because a number of utility workers from Ohio were sent to help restore infrastructure hammered by Ike in Texas, before the extent of the damage in Ohio became clear. But some utility companies in Ohio are recalling their workers, according to the Associated Press.

Texas Campuses Begin Cleaning Up After Ike, and Some Reopen

From this article:

Officials at colleges and universities along the Texas Gulf Coast continued to catalog damages and get their facilities back online on Monday in the wake of Hurricane Ike, and a few that were in the storm's path were even reopening. The availability of electrical power was a deciding factor for many, as the storm destroyed power grids as it roared ashore early Saturday with peak winds at 110 miles an hour, leaving more than three million utility customers in the dark.

In Devastated Galveston, a Hospital Is on Hold

From this article:

Three days after Hurricane Ike devastated this island community, along with much of the Texas Gulf Coast, the teaching hospital that has survived hurricanes for more than a century was once again getting back on its feet. . . . Campus officials say it could be a month or more before the hospital resumes regular operations and is able to bring all of its students and residents back. In the meantime, administrators are working on temporary placements for 557 medical residents and about 2,400 medical, nursing, allied-health, and graduate students. The hospital has about 12,000 employees, 8,000 of whom work in Galveston.

Disaster Preparedness and Recovery Resources

From the excellent newsletter CurrentCites comes this timely (think 'flooding') annotation of an American Library Association (ALA) set of resources on disaster mitigation:

American Libary Assocation. "[7] Disaster Preparedness and Recovery [8]American Library Association Website  (August2007) (http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/woissues/disasterpreparedness/distrprep.cfm). - I'm using the "current" in Current Cites this month to think about current events. I live in St. Louis, and I've been watching the flood waters rise in our area and throughout the Midwest. I'm starting a new job soon, and two of the branches for the St. Charles City-County Library District are under threat of flooding. They're still dry as of right now, and all of the staff are safe. However, much of the community will suffer losses this summer due to flooding. I look at the [9] pictures of the Cedar Rapids Public Library, and know that could happen anywhere along a flood plain. If you haven't thought much about disaster preparedness at your library, take a look at some of the excellent resources linked from the "Disaster Preparedness and Recovery" page from the ALA Washington Office. Highlights include:

[10] Disaster Mitigation Planning Assistance Website: Search by state for services, view sample disaster plans, and check out other resources.Disaster Mitigation Assistance Website: Search by state for services, view sample disaster plans, Planning and check out other resources.

 [11] Flood Mitigation Assistance Program: FEMA's grant program to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk of flood damage. Flood Mitigation Assistance Program: FEMA's grant program to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk of flood damage.

 [12] dPlan: The Online Disaster-Planning Tool: A site from the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) which allows you to enter data into an online template to create a customized disaster plan for your institution.dPlan: The Online Disaster-Planning Tool: A site from the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) which allows you to enter data into an online template to create customized disaster plan for your institution.

Remember, disaster isn't always delivered from Mother Nature. Pipes burst, cars drive into buildings, and fires happen. Be sure to have a disaster plan in place for your library and your community. - KC

It is published with this Creative Commons license.