Building Campus Preparedness and Resilience
United States Academe at Risk
By Todd I. Stewart, Ph.D.

America’s colleges and universities are at risk from both natural disasters and intentional attacks that can temporarily interrupt academic operations for days or weeks or even result in permanent closure of the institution. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005 impacted more than 30 post-secondary institutions. Now, almost 2-1/2 years after our nation’s most devastating natural disaster, many of these institutions are still struggling to regain enrollments and tuition revenue, attract replacement faculty, recover research programs, and restore or replace damaged infrastructure. It is not yet clear that all of these institutions will even survive.

Our campuses have also been the target of intentional attacks or threats of violence that have had dramatic short- and long-term traumatic impacts. Most recently, we have witnessed “active-shooter” incidents by mentally disturbed students at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008.

During recent years, many of our major research universities and a number of individual researchers have been the targets of violent threats, arson, and vandalism that have disrupted or destroyed years of invaluable research. These attacks have been primarily attributed to the Animal Liberation Front and various “eco-terrorist” groups.

Finally, a number of colleges and universities have been the target of cyber-terrorism attacks, directed at destroying or disabling critical information systems, affecting academic operations. These attacks are in addition to those cyber-crimes intended for purposes such as identity theft or stealing cutting-edge research information (i.e., industrial espionage).   

The potential consequences of a major disaster at a campus are varied. These include “first-order” consequences, e.g., casualties or victims, damage to facilities, and destruction of research data, etc. In turn, these result in institutional impacts which include disruption of academic operations (teaching and research), the loss of students (and associated revenue), loss of faculty, money damages resulting from civil litigation, and potential long-term impact to the institution’s reputation and academic credibility.

Moreover, in many cases, the college or university is the primary economic “center of gravity” within a community and a temporary suspension of operations can have significant local or regional economic consequences.

Campus Preparedness and Resilience – Today
Academic institutions in the United States vary significantly in their capability to prevent, endure, respond to, and recover from major traumatic events. In other words, they vary considerably in their preparedness and resilience.

Similarly, they vary considerably in their ability to reduce risks and to improve preparedness and resilience. There is also great variation in how well individual colleges and universities understand and appreciate the nature of the risks they face – their awareness of the risks. 

Following the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech in April 2007, more than a few states established task forces or commissions to examine the preparedness and resilience of the public (and, in some cases, private) colleges and universities in their respective states.

Some of these reviews focused primarily on the scenario of a mentally-disturbed, active shooter, while other states made a more inclusive assessment, including traumatic events of all types (i.e., both natural disasters and intentional acts of violence). Similarly, most focused on prevention and emergency-response issues; fewer addressed the issue of maintaining “continuity of academic operations,” during and immediately-following a major traumatic event.

The collective results of these reviews confirmed, in general, there is significant variation in: (1) current campus preparedness and resilience; (2) the priority and emphasis given to preparing for these “low-probability, high-consequence” events; (3) assignment of responsibilities for campus preparedness and resilience; and (4) the capability of individual institutions (i.e., available expertise and resources) to take action to improve preparedness and resilience.

National Capability to Improve Campus Preparedness and Resilience
Today, there is relatively limited national capability to assist individual institutions improve preparedness and resilience; to facilitate the collection and sharing of best practices, benchmark plans and programs, and lessons learned from events and exercises; and to systematically develop improved capabilities, policies and strategies.

Despite the fact that United States academe includes more than 4,000 institutions and is the collective home for more than 20 million students, faculty and staff, there has been no clear designation of a lead department or agency within the federal government to develop policies and programs to improve campus preparedness and resilience.

For example, the National Strategy for Homeland Security and the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (developed by the United States Department of Homeland Security) identifies some 18 sectors of “critical infrastructure.” However, schools (both K-12 and/or post-secondary institutions) are not one of these primary sectors.  They are buried under the “Government Facilities” sector. 

Following the shootings at Virginia Tech, President Bush charged the Attorney General and the Secretaries of Education and of Health and Human Services to do a review.  This review did not include the Secretary of Homeland Security and did not consider the spectrum of hazards and threats that put our academic institutions at risk.

There have been some notable, but limited, non-governmental efforts to establish a national capability to assist individual colleges and universities in improving campus preparedness and resilience.

In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005, a number of non-government organizations engaged to help the affected institutions and their students continue academic operations, if only on a limited basis.  For example, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation implemented its “Sloan Semester,” in which it quickly pulled together an informal alliance of institutions across the country that offer on-line courses and made these courses available to students at those schools disrupted by the storms – at no cost to the affected students.  However, this was a one-time, ad hoc initiative and a capability that has not yet been institutionalized.  

In February 2008, the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), in partnership with seven other (non-government) academic associations, announced that an 18-month study:

…to address all threats faced by colleges and universities and to strengthen their safety and security was launched this month by NACUBO in partnership with several higher education associations. This comprehensive new assessment of the wide-ranging risks common to all institutions will explore key safety and security threats and deliver information to help campuses prepare. Study results will include guidance on preparing emergency management plans for prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery related to threats of every nature:  natural disasters, infectious diseases, shootings, terrorist attacks, cyber attacks – all types of events with the potential for devastation. (For more information see: http://www.nacubo.org/). 

This is certainly a commendable initiative and will be potentially very beneficial.  However, it represents a one-time effort and not an enduring capability that institutions can rely upon in the future.  

A National Center for Campus Preparedness and Resilience
To meet this challenge, The Ohio State University, with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has begun the detailed planning to establish and operate a “National Center for Campus Preparedness and Resilience.”

As currently envisioned, this center would provide colleges and universities with a variety of services to assist them in preventing, preparing for, withstanding, responding to, and recovering from both natural disasters and intentional acts of violence by individuals or groups. Specifically, the center would be established under Ohio State’s John Glenn School of Public Affairs and would offer expertise and resources to assist with:

The proposed center would also support state and federal government. The center would function as a “think tank” to assist responsible government agencies in developing better-informed public policy, strategy, and programs dealing with campus safety, security, and resilience.

It would assist responsible agencies and legislative committees with studies and analyses, expert testimony at hearings, and independent analysis of proposed legislation.

The proposed national center would also conduct or sponsor research related to all aspects of campus preparedness and resilience. This could include research designed to improve our understanding of trends, problems and opportunities; research to develop new capabilities to improve campus preparedness and resilience (e.g., plans, training, hardware, software, operational procedures, etc.); and research to better inform public policy and strategy.  The center would establish a refereed “Journal of Academic Preparedness & Resilience” to publish the results of this research.

Finally, the proposed center would also support interested non-government organizations, including various academic associations, as well as vendors offering products and services to support campus readiness and resilience. 

For the associations, we envision the center would provide “think-tank type” services, similar to the center’s support to government organizations. 

For vendors, the center would provide venues to market their products and services, including advertising in the center’s on-line catalog and exhibiting at the center’s national and regional conferences.

As we currently envision it, the center would operate with a relatively modest organic staff and would rely on agreements or contracts with a variety of government, college/university, academic association, and industry partners, located throughout the country, to help provide the center’s services and products.  As one example, the center will engage the National Academic Consortium for Homeland Security (www.homelandsecurity.osu.edu/NACHS) and its 360+ member institutions (collectively representing every state in the United States and D.C.) to help disseminate information. 

This strategy will allow the center to draw on the best available capabilities and expertise and provide its services in the most responsive, reliable and affordable manner. The current business model for this (not-for-profit) center relies primarily on a fee-for-service approach. 

However, we will also solicit government sponsorship and funding and financial support from non-government organizations (and individual donors), to hold down (or in some cases, eliminate) costs to clients.  We expect the planning for this initiative to be completed by June 2008.

The Way Ahead
Clearly, America’s college and university campuses are at risk from natural disasters and intentional acts of violence.  And just as clearly, United States academe faces some significant challenges to improving campus preparedness and resilience. 

However, the current situation also offers some exciting opportunities to improve and make progress. These opportunities exist both within state and federal government and outside of government. At the federal-government level, Congress and the Administration need to recognize the nation’s colleges and universities as a primary sector of critical infrastructure. 

The Administration needs to clearly designate a lead federal department or agency to be responsible for developing relevant and responsive national policy, strategy and programs and to provide funding support as appropriate. 

Similarly, the respective state governments need to place appropriate emphasis on the preparedness and resilience of (at least) its public/state institutions.  This also includes designating a responsible, lead state agency (e.g., Board of Regents, Department of Education, etc.) to establish appropriate policies, strategies plans and programs.

Outside of government, the various academic associations and consortia should consider establishing programs and initiatives to promote and facilitate campus preparedness and resilience, consistent with their respective charters and goals. 

Similarly, we encourage independent foundations to follow the lead of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (and others) in supporting initiatives that will reduce the risk to our nation’s campuses.

Finally, we invite interested government and non-government organizations to consider partnering with The Ohio State University, in establishing and operating the proposed “National Center for Campus Preparedness and Resilience,” to provide our nation with a robust, enduring capability to assist America’s colleges and universities (and our responsible government activities) in improving the safety, security and resilience of our campuses.

Dr. Todd Stewart, Major General, USAF (retired), directs the University Office for National Security Research and Education Programs, at The Ohio State University.  He also established and serves as Executive Director of the National Academic Consortium for Homeland Security.  He holds a presidential appointment to the National Security Education Board.  Dr. Stewart can be reached at (614) 688-3276 or by email:  stewart.598@osu.edu.