Dates: June 10, 2024- July 19, 2024 

This course will give a broad overview of how student affairs professionals can best support their students and campus during crisis situations. Topics will include the foundations of crisis management, crisis management teams or emergency management teams, the creation of crisis management plans, communications during times of crisis, recovery following an incident, and relationships across the institution and with outside agencies. Participants will learn about best emergency management and campus crisis management best practices and see pragmatic examples of how they can implement best practices on their campuses.

This course highlights the timely landscape of emergency management and crisis action planning on college campuses. Instructors with extensive experience in this area will bring in topic experts to share best practices in campus crisis management to outline a variety of experiences and lessons learned.

Learning Outcomes

• Articulate and Implement an emergency planning process and steps for future actions/reflection.
• Contribute to and/or write a comprehensive emergency management plan to implement on their campus or program. 
• Identify individual positions and departments critical to a holistic all-campus approach to emergency preparedness at their institution.
• Identify the key terms used in higher education emergency management.

 Course Outline: 

Week 1 -Intro - Historical Events, Crisis Management Teams/Emergency Management Teams

Week 2- Crisis Action Plans/Emergency Operations Plans

Week 3 -Crisis Communications

Week 4 - Coordination with Outside Agencies

Week 5 -After the Crisis / Recovery Planning and the Path Forward

Live Sessions

The five 60-minute live sessions will be held every Wednesday from 1:00 p.m. ET. There will be no live sessions or work the week of July 4th. 

They are scheduled for the following dates:

Week 1: June 12

Week 2: June 19

Week 3: June 26

Week 4: July 10

Week 5: July 14

This course will be synchronous and asynchronous, with one weekly live session. Depending on the content and speakers of each live session, the session may be recorded for viewing at a later date. Attendance and participation in the live session are highly encouraged and offer an opportunity to engage in activities and knowledge sharing that will add to the learning experience.

Course Commitment and Expectations

The course will require 4-7 hours per week, with assignments, engagement, and live sessions. All participants are expected to contribute to discussions and be present during live sessions. The course requires participants to have access to a computer, Wi-Fi, and webcam. All live sessions will be via Zoom, which will provide presentation slides and closed captioning.