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Creating and Training Crisis Teams

Creating and Training Crisis Teams

Includes a Live Web Event on 03/04/2025 at 1:00 PM (EST)

Creating and training crisis teams is a complex but essential part of campus preparedness. Colleges and universities rely on teams such as the Incident Management Team, Crisis Communications Team, Critical Incident Response Team, Behavioral Threat Assessment Team, and CARE Team (mental health) to respond effectively when crises arise. Whether you serve on one of these teams or are tasked with developing a crisis response structure, understanding their roles and functions is critical.

Join us for an in-depth session where we will explore best practices for forming and training crisis teams, responding appropriately when crises occur, and fostering institutional resilience. Our approach emphasizes compassion and coordinated action, recognizing that crises impact not only those directly affected but also the entire campus community—including the responders themselves.

 

Learning Outcomes:

Create Emergency management principles and structures to proper execute a crisis management plan on your campus. 

Identify common crisis response teams in higher education, their purposes, and  

membership.

Create and structure a crisis response team, including:

• Determining the team's purpose

• Defining roles and qualifications for team members

• Establishing reporting structures

Articulate key components of crisis team training, including:

• Setting training objectives

• Choosing effective training methods

• Evaluating team effectiveness and preparedness

Brent Paterson, Ph. D

President and Founder

Prepared Campus Consulting

Dr. Brent Paterson has over 40 years of higher education experience in roles such as Dean of Student Life, Associate Vice President, Vice President, and Assistant to the President/Chief of Staff. He also served as an instructional associate professor at Texas A&M University and Illinois State University teaching courses in student affairs and higher education administration

Brent has a long history in crisis response including the creation, implementation, and oversight of critical incident response teams at Texas A&M University and Illinois State University and the student behavioral intervention team and threat assessment team at Illinois State University.  He is co-author of Crisis Management: Responding from the Heart and contributing author in Campus Crisis Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Prevention, Response, and Recovery (First Edition), and Enough Is Enough: A Student Affairs Perspective on Preparedness and Response to a Campus Shooting.  Brent is co-author of a research study that examined the impact on university leaders and responders twenty years after a crisis ("Reflections from Crisis: A Phenomenological Study of the Texas A&M Bonfire Collapse" published in the NASPA Journal).  


Brent’s contributions have earned him the D. Parker Young Research Award, NASPA Pillar of the Profession recognition, and the Order of Fraternal Excellence Award.

Carla Stein

Consultant

Prepared Campus Consulting

Carla Stein has over 40 years of experience in a variety of higher education institutions including 22 years in community colleges. Before her retirement in 2022, Carla served as Dean of Student Affairs at Front Range Community College (Boulder County Campus), the largest community college in the State of Colorado. Prior to her work at Front Range Community College, she served as the Dean of Students at Western Nebraska Community College.  She also worked in student affairs at Oklahoma State University, Colorado School of Mines, University of Denver, and Palm Beach Atlantic University.  

Carla has extensive experience in student conduct, behavioral intervention and threat assessment teams, and crisis management.  She played pivotal roles in response to crises, including the 2013 floods that impacted her institution and other campuses in northern Colorado.  Carla has been awarded the NASPA Amigx/a/o Mena Valdez Award from the NASPA Latinx/a/o Knowledge Community and the Distinguished Service Award from NASPA IV-West.  She was named a NASPA Pillar of the Profession for sustained professional distinction in higher education.

 

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