Communications Plan for Responding to Campus Crises
- Handling crisis calls: Upon receiving a call regarding an emergency or crisis situation (e.g., homicide, fire, injury, etc.) on campus, direct the call, in the following sequence, to:
Public Safety - 859-985-3333
Media Relations Manager (Tim Jordan)
(Office phone: 859-985-3020; Cell phone: 859-582-0719)
(Email: tim_jordan@berea.edu).
- Public Safety will contact the appropriate administrators and Media Relations. Following coordination with Public Safety, Media Relations will:
- Determine "game plan": what to do
- Determine audience segments for notification (e.g., students, parents, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, media, etc.)
- Determine key message: what to say
- Determine venues for notification (e.g., email, text alerts, social media, etc.)
- Determine who should be the official College spokesperson if other than the Media Relations Manager (e.g., Administrative Committee (AC) member, Legal Counsel, or other. Note - use President sparingly in “routine” crisis situations.)
- AC members implement calling tree to notify their staff and/or faculty members as appropriate.
- In the event of a major crisis or emergency (e.g., homicide, fire, significant injury, etc.) assemble and imbed a Marketing and Communications (MC) communications command center at the Public Safety staging area. At the staging area, MC staff will:
- Establish a communications center, either in the MC office or on-site as needed
- Collaborate with Telephone Center and Public Safety to field calls from public and determine appropriate administrator to follow up.
And will be organized accordingly:
- One person should be on the scene
- Another should receive and route incoming calls
- A third should get administrative input.
Approved by the Administrative Committee, November 25, 2015