Campus Safety Meeting Addresses Emergency Situation Preparation
How well prepared is the Exeter community? Recently, students and faculty have been discussing the Academy’s response for emergency situations such as a shooting or a bomb threat.
Last Thursday, some students and faculty attended a campus safety meeting which instructed attendees on the proper way to react in certain emergencies. While the meeting was informative and shed light on some policies, it also elicited mixed reactions from the students who attended.
Paul Gravel, director of Campus Safety, worked with the Dean of Students office over the summer to review and update the E Book information regarding campus safety, emergency response and personal safety.
“We are anxious to conduct full participation emergency drills throughout the year, to better prepare our faculty members, students and staff members on evacuation and lockdown procedures.”
He has prepared safety presentations for students, faculty and staff members on responses to emergency situations occurring on and off campus. In addition to presentations, Gravel said that extensive practice drills are necessary to fully educate the community.
“We are anxious to conduct full participation emergency drills throughout the year, to better prepare our faculty members, students and staff members on evacuation and lockdown procedures,” Gravel said. “Our goal is to have every person on campus so familiar with responding to emergency situations that it becomes automatic.”
During the meeting last Thursday, multiple campus safety officials communicated the policies on campus lockdowns, emergency situations and fire safety measures.
In regard to the lockdown policy, the E Book directs students to “...not let anyone into a building or room during a campus lockdown. If you are outside when a lockdown is initiated, do not check doors or wait outside a building in an attempt to gain access. You should immediately leave campus, go to a safe location and monitor text messages for incident updates.”
This policy was highlighted during the campus safety meeting. Instructors told students that if they found themselves outside during a campus lockdown, they should immediately run into downtown Exeter and seek shelter.
Gravel further explained the Campus Safety response to various emergency situations. He said that the response would differ depending on the nature of the threat.
“A stranger on campus trying to enter buildings could cause us to lock down doors and send a message via Exeter Alert to all students and faculty to ‘take cover inside the nearest building’ while keeping access cards operable so students can enter locked doors and seek safety inside,” Gravel said. “If we received an internal threat, a disgruntled employee possibly armed for example, we may lockdown all doors, disable all cards to prevent someone with a card from entering, and instruct students via Exeter Alert to simply leave campus or move to a particular location on campus like Love Gym or the Boathouse.”
While this technology is advantageous to secure the school and its buildings, its potential instructions are frightening to some students. “I think that the idea that our key cards wouldn’t work and that we would just have to ‘go off campus’ is scary,” senior Lucy Knox said. “I think that could cause a lot of anxiety for students in the moment.”
Senior Caroline Sullivan agreed that although being trapped outside would be “terrifying,” locking the school is “the most effective way to keep a threat out of buildings.”
Because of the nature of the meeting, some students were left confused at what their overall reaction to an unwanted visitor should be.
A joke made by one of the officers at the meeting unsettled some of the students in attendance. “They said if we encountered a dangerous person with a gun, we should fight back,” Knox said. “They jokingly mentioned throwing a TI-89 calculator. The idea that we should attack an intruder as students was confusing.”
However, other students saw reason in the lockdown policy. Upper Alejandro Arango said that the policy was “logical and practical.”
Arango highlighted the risk associated with allowing students into buildings during a lockdown.
“While on the surface this may seem like a strict policy, having several students trying to get into buildings with the risk of an active threat forcing his or her way is unsafe,” he said.
Although some students were confused by what the proper response should be, Arango and Sullivan praised the clarity of the text message alert system that has been constructed across campus. Students who enter their phone number on the Exeter website can be immediately notified of an emergency and updated in real time.
“I’m not sure how prepared you can ever be for such a situation, but I think the text updates are a good way to provide immediate updates to everyone on campus and give specific steps to take in the moment,” Sullivan said.
Gravel also cited the importance of the text notification service and other on-campus technology in helping Campus Safety respond appropriately to various situations. “Because each situation is different and responses need to happen immediately, having Exeter Alert emergency notification system is an essential tool for us to get the word out via text and email in the event of an incident on campus,” Gravel said. “Detailed instructions can be shared with everyone on campus as to the nature of the incident and the desired responses.”
Going forward, Gravel hopes to further utilize technology to distribute emergency information to the Academy community.
“Campus Safety is currently populating a smartphone application that will provide detailed procedures around responding to various situations that may require an immediate response,” Gravel said.
“We hope to make this app available by the end of October. This will assist faculty members by providing emergency response protocol right at their fingertips.”