Keeping Safe in an Emergency

Penelope Ferry-Leeper, a lab supervisor, embraces Duke's strategy of a shared responsibility for safety and security.

"I feel a sense of responsibility to the people I work with," said Ferry-Leeper, a research analyst at Duke University Eye Center's Albert Eye Research Institute. "I want to find out how I would be contacted if there was an emergency on campus, and what my role would be in helping to spread the word to others in my area."

Ferry-Leeper attended Tuesday's Primetime forum on emergency planning withAaron Graves, associate vice president for safety and security, and Kemel Dawkins, vice president for campus services. After the shootings at Virginia Tech in April, Dawkins led a review of Duke's emergency plans in coordination with President Richard H. Brodhead, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask III and other senior leaders to improve preparedness. (Download the entire Primetime talk from Duke on iTunes U.)

"I want you to know that we have thought not just about the incidents themselves as they may arise; we've thought about what we could do to lower the probability that those incidents could happen at Duke," Dawkins told nearly 200 faculty, staff and students gathered in Griffith Theater. "We've thought also about what things we should do in preparation for all kinds of events. We've also focused on how we would respond and, ultimately, how we would get the institution back to its core missions."

In an emergency, Dawkins said, the Duke communitycan expect to receive information quickly and in numerous ways. The importance of shared responsibility -- before, during and after emergencies -- resonated as Dawkins and Graves emphasized that responding to emergencies -- and preventing them -- relies on multiple communication methods to reach faculty, staff and students and a concerted effort among the Duke community.

"You play a role in making Duke a safe place to live, work and receive your education," Graves said. "In the event that we had to deal with a crisis or disaster situation, then you would be a resource to the community to help us respond and recover as soon as possible."

Tuesday's discussion, the fifth in a series of quarterly employee forums with Duke senior administrators, included a question-and-answer session that touched on ways to help prevent a crisis, such as referring troubled students and employees to counseling services on campus; notification methods, such as developing a dedicated computer server to promptly send e-mail alerts across campus; and response plans, including mutual aid agreements with the Durham Police Department and others.

Graves said the Duke community can help prevent some emergencies and make crisis management more effective by:

• Reporting suspicious activity on campus to the Duke Police at 684-2444 or 911.
• Referring troubled students to Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) and employees to Personal Assistance Service (PAS).

• Updating work and home contact information to make it easier to receive emergency notifications.
• Confirming service categories -- essential, reserved or delayed -- to help understand roles during an emergency.

"If you see something suspicious in nature, then follow your instincts -- and make sure you contact your supervisor, the police, CAPS or PAS," Graves said. "Just do not let it go unattended because it may evolve into something more serious."

In the event of an emergency, Duke will use a "layered approach" with multiple notification methods such as notices on Duke Today, e-mail blasts, phone trees and public address systems.

Duke employees asked questions Tuesday about emergency preparedness. Photo by Megan Morr.

Duke will install a siren and voice-announcement system in 2008 to broadcast messages across campus and is currently assessing text messaging systems.

"It's important that we look at high-tech options, such as email and text messaging, but we also have to resort back to low-tech means such as dispatching an individual to a building to notify people," Graves said. "We will use every means available to alert the community."

Also, a website has been developed for the Duke community to learn more about notification and the crisis communication plan. On the site, Duke community members can sign up for RSS feeds such as the alert.rss feed that would notify subscribers after an emergency is reported. The site also will have other feeds for updates as an emergency unfolds.

In reply to an audience question about whether the Duke Police Department is prepared to handle a crisis like Virginia Tech, Graves said that the Duke Police response time would be "three to five minutes, if not sooner," if a criminal incident like a shooting occurred.

Duke's work is not done, Dawkins and Graves said. Leaders plan to conduct drills to test communication methods in effort to continually improve the crisis management plan.

The plan is "a work-in-progress," said Graves, adding that information gathered during the drills will allow Duke to effectively determine which communication methods are the most efficient and effective ways to reach the Duke community.

"We know that not everyone is going to read his or her email or their telephone may be turned off," he said. "So, we need the synergy and energy of everybody working together to get the word out as best they can that something has gone wrong and you need to take some type of action."