By Katie Sobalsky
How ready is Green Mountain College for an emergency? What would we do if a fire broke out, or even worse to think about, if there was a school shooting? In light of the tragedy at Virginia Tech and most recently at Northern Illinois University, these are unfortunate but necessary questions to ask. Although currently in the process of being formed, as of right now Green Mountain College has no completed emergency response plan.
Joe Manning, Vice President of Administration and Financing, is part of a council that is forming the college’s Emergency Response and Recover Plan. Other members include Head of Security, Steve Brown, Director of Facilities, Gary Marcy and members of Student Life. Manning says that the plan is almost complete and its draft was approved by the cabinet.
Manning said that the college began to seriously consider forming an emergency response plan last fall, admitting that the Virginia Tech shooting had enforced the necessity. After reviewing more than ten emergency plans of other colleges, Manning decided to hire the outside firm Margoliss and Healy for assistance. “They’re nationally renowned for devising college and university emergency response plans,” says Manning. Margolis and Healy are both chief of police at UVM and Princeton.
The plan is based on five levels of emergency: one being the lowest, like a broken pipe, five being catastrophic, “like a typhoon or something,” laughed Manning. The college’s response would depend on the level of emergency. “Fortunately, we have a good fire department, rescue squad, and constable in Poultney, although he’s not always available, and the state police only six miles away … they’ve all been good responders in the past,” said Manning.
Part of the new Emergency Response and Recover Plan requires that all members of the cabinet go through emergency response training by experts, although Manning isn’t sure what the training will entail. Others that will receive this training will be: the Provost, President, Dean of Student Life, Vice President of Development, Dean of Enrollment, Director of Campus Security, Director of Wellness, IT, Human Resources, and Auxiliary Services. This training will take place at the beginning of March.
“The biggest problem is communication,” said Manning, “how do we communicate to the students?” In case of emergency, Manning says that students would be contacted via email or cellphone voice mails and text messages. He says he plans to gather student cellphone numbers soon so that this would be possible.
But not all students have cellphones or check their email regularly. Manning says that he is “looking at a device everyone could hear-a signal for students to do something.” What this device would be, where it would be installed, what it would sound like, and what we would do when we heard it, are not known at this time. However, Manning seemed fairly certain that some type of device would be installed and would be tested with dry-runs involving the college community.
If something happened right now, Manning said that the only way the college could let everyone know would be through email. This recently happened when the town bank was robbed and an email was sent out to alarm students about a possible armed suspect. If that person had come on our campus, Manning says there would have been another warning via email saying something like “Bank robber on campus. Loaded weapon. Stay down.”
Green Mountain also has an informal arrangement with Nichols College in Dudley, MA if for any reason we had to evacuate the town, says Manning. And if pipes broke in a dorm building, leaving students in the cold, people would get doubled up or beds would be set up in the gym. “I don’t have any contact with the town, but I think we could use the town too” says Manning.
Manning was also excited to announce the formation of the Threat Assessment Team. It will be comprised of four to five trained individuals on campus that you can talk to if you feel uncomfortable or threatened. “It would be like a hot line,” said Manning, you could go to this team anonymously and they would asses the situation.
Manning hopes that by April he will be confident in our emergency response plan. As soon as the plan is finalized all students, staff, and faculty will be informed. In the mean time, check your email in case of an emergency.
