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Hello, my name is Bob Harkins.
I'm the Associate Vice President for Campus Safety and Security.
Thank you for viewing this presentation on the
organization, structure, plans and planning that have gone into
the University of Texas at Austin Campus Safety and Security System.
If you go back to September 11th 2001,
we all can remember the terror and anguish that this nation
went through as we reacted to the events of that day.
9/11 was a significant date for this nation,
but also for the campus as we began to examine what we were
doing and how would -- how we would respond to a terrorist or
some type of active shooting incident on campus.
Dr. Pat Clubb the Vice President of the university operations
formed up the Campus Safety Security Committee in its
infancy and began to give it some instructions and guidance
and finally in 2005 the decision was made by Dr. Clubb to form
the Office of the Associate Vice President for Campus Safety and Security.
That is the position that I hold at this point in time.
I oversee the director of emergency preparedness,
the chief of police, the director of parking and
transportation, the university fire marshal,
and the director of environment health and safety.
The mission of the Office of the Associate Vice President for
Campus Safety and Security is ensure the safety, welfare,
and security of all people at the University of Texas.
The five values of trust, leadership, communications,
teamwork, and excellence form the bedrock on which the office
has been developed.
There are five goals that the University of Texas Office for
Campus Safety and Security has, focusing on the development of
programs, the establishment of communications,
finding best practices and implementing them from across
the nation, being a leader and developing the leadership across
campus to react to situations, and to promote safety awareness.
Most university's are organized in silo-type institutions where
there are not a lot of vertical communications,
most of the communications is linear.
A university like the University of Texas is typical of that type
of example.
The Campus Safety and Security Committee that you see depicted
on this slide is our attempt to begin to break down those silos
when it comes to emergencies on campus.
We meet monthly, and I chair that,
and we have all the discussion - we have discussion with all the
key players when it comes to any safety and security issue on campus.
The president is the ultimate decision maker in any campus
emergency that we might have.
He has with him a Core Crisis Management Team that forms the
nucleus for his senior leadership to be able to make
decision.
You see depicted to this slide the current members of the Core
Crisis Management Team for University of Texas.
We also have spent some time developing assessment teams
because in order to give the president the information that
he needs to make decisions somebody's got to be able to
make a decision and make an analysis in terms of what's
going on and then be able to provide some leadership options.
Our core campus assessment teams are responsible for identifying,
assessing and managing incidents,
and then to determine appropriate actions.
We conduct investigations with these teams as appropriate and
then we develop and implement an action plan,
and then finally do the follow-up necessary to make
certain that all things are covered.
The dean of students has developed a Critical Incident
Response Team that you see depicted to this slide.
This diverse group pulls together to look at the impact
on students and the impact on student events on campus
whenever there's an incident.
There are two teams that look at individuals that maybe having difficulty.
The first of which you see on this slide is the Behavior
Assessment Team or as we call it the BAT team.
The BAT team focuses on students that are in crisis or in trouble
or having difficulty to try and develop a plan once again to
make certain that student can have success as well as the university.
If it's a staff member or a facility member the threat
assessment team or the TAT team they - accomplishes the same
functions as the BAT team only dealing strictly with staff and
facility here on campus.
Both of these teams job are to make assessments and to provide
options and plans to the senior leadership of the university and
for them to resolve any issues that might be there.
As I mentioned earlier there are many out groves of what happened
during the tragic incident at Virginia Tech.
Foremost in these is communications and I discussed a
little bit about how we sent out, for our incident,
54,000 text messages in seven minutes.
We'll talk a little bit more about that a little bit later on.
But the main program that came out of the tragedy at Virginia
Tech for the University of Texas was the establishment of the
Behavior Concerns Advice Line.
This is a phone line that goes directly into the dean of
students' office and the dean of students will sort out whether
or not it's a staff problem, facility problem,
or student problem and kind of what resources we can put behind
that - that problem to be able to resolve it.
If it's an emergency that looks like it's impending danger or
some type of violence it goes directly to the University of
Texas Police Department and we respond to that.
We have multiple hundreds of calls annually on this line and
it has proven to be, in the words of the chief of police,
"the best insurance to campus safety is BCAL".
The University of Texas Police Department focuses on community policing.
By community policing we mean outreaching to the community and
being engaged with all of the individuals on campus to ensure
the safety and security of the campus.
We spend a lot of time with our police officers communicating
policy across the campus to all groups.
We do crime be prevention surveys where we can look at all
areas to see if we can do anything to kind of prevent
property crimes.
There are also if you go to the University of Texas website,
you noted up here on this slide there are to videos one called
"Flashpoint" and one called "When Lightning Strikes".
These videos are excellent videos, about 20 minutes long,
and if you have a University of Texas EID you can go to the
website listed on the slide and pull down those videos and spend
20 minutes looking at them and to kind of see what are the
indications that an individual exhibits before they "crack" if
you will or before they "flash" and then the "When Lightning
Strikes" is what to do if you're caught in an active shooting
situation within your facility.
Both of which are excellent videos that will help you and
the people you are with do -- know what to do in the event of an emergency.
The RAD class listed on the slide is a class that's very
popular to teach people, particularly females,
self defense against people that might try and do them harm.
I would ask each of you also to sign up for Campus Watch in the
address that is listed here on the side and that will tell you
kind of what's happening each day on campus in terms of any
campus activities that involve the police department.
Social media is something all of us have to figure out and come
to a better grasp in terms of how to deal with that form of
media during an emergency and during an event.
I'll talk a little bit more about it a little bit later on
during the communications portion but suffice it to say
that on September 27th, the day before the shooting on campus,
UTPD had 400 plus friends on their Facebook account.
On the 29th they had over 12,000.
We communicated and used social media to communicate to the
campus and to the community what was going on this campus on the
September 28th.
There's also some safety protocols,
i.e. posters that you can download from the University of
Texas Police Department that talk about what to do in the
event of an active shooter in your facility.
Backing up all of us on campus is the Counseling and Mental
Health Center.
It is there to service students and to provide individual and
group counseling, psychiatric services, obviously 24-hour,
7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year phone counseling if needed to
assist in medical withdrawals or the adjustment from classes if
there are large periods of absence because of illness.
It's a place where you can go to get help with Voices Against
Violence that try and provide counseling in group sessions for
people that have had violence occur in their life.
If a student has a drug or an alcohol problem they can get
counseling through this center.
There are classes on managing stress and how to de-stress
yourself a little bit, particularly as it gets towards
finals time or some of the other major times on campus,
and to me the program that I'd really like to emphasize is a
program called Be That One.
Be That One asks each of us to reach out to any students we see
that are in stress and make certain they don't hurt
themselves so if you want to know how to help your friends go
look at Be That One, remember BCAL.
Those two programs will help us all be the watchers of our
brothers and our sisters out there trying to take care of
each other here at the University of Texas.
For staff and facility the Employee Assistance Program also
is a great tool to be able to help people at work that are
having difficulty.
Health Point provides the opportunity for people to --
people on campus to understand how to live a healthier life and
how to take better care of their body.
You can see the website there that will kind of lead you
toward that.
The employee assistance program itself provides individual
counseling, manager counseling, grief counseling,
and most people don't think about grief counseling,
but if there's been a death or a tragic event in an office we
need to provide time for people to grieve and if you contact the
employee assistance program they have grief counselors that can
come and help you and your department work through that
tragic situation.
They also work on workplace safety and crisis management,
as well as the work/life balancing and how do you balance
that between your home life and the University of Texas.
We haven't stopped there in terms of programs that we've got
in place on campus.
Have An Exit Strategy is a strategy that was formulated in
conjunction with the University of Texas and the state fire
marshal's office.
It came out of the 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire where over
a hundred people died because they all tried to get out the
same entrance they came in when there were other exits that were
available.
What this program asks you to do is no matter where you go,
wherever you work, at home, and wherever you play,
make certain you see and find a way to get out of any facility
in the event of an emergency.
Most recently think about the shooting in Colorado at a movie
theatre and when you go to a movie theatre take a look and
find out where those exits are, when you go to a club downtown
take a look and find out where those exits are,
in the room you're sitting in right now, in a classroom,
where are the exits, how can you get out of the facility in the
event of an emergency?
The program that has done an awful lot to the campus and came
out of the -- the need came out of the September 28th incident
on the University at Texas campus as the Building Manager
Program.
We have now identified 165 buildings in which we have
people living and working in on campus.
We have 165 building managers that are designated by a senior
official and have the responsibility for coordinating
security, emergency planning, renovation and repairs,
special projects and events, and communications.
Contact your building manager.
Get to know your building manager because that person is
building your department evacuation plans and your
department communications plans - very critical program for
everybody to know and understand.
So who is your building manager?
The next section we're looking at is a section that I call
Plans and Planning.
You see on this slide the five plans that we developed to talk
about how we do emergencies here at the University of Texas.
You also see a link on the slide where you can go and download
these plans from the University of Texas website and be able to
have the plans available in your offices at your desk.
It deals with our overall emergency plan,
our infectious disease, our severe weather,
our building management and restricted assess plan,
as well as business continuity.
At the University of Texas we identified 46 incidents that we
were concerned about and wanted to include in our plan.
We evaluated these incidents, whether or not the probability
was low, medium, or high, the probability of incurrence,
and also the impact on health and safety,
and the impact on property and environment.
We reevaluate these annually and make certain that we still have
the right incidents as well as the right probability
evaluations.
You'll see this slide plus the next slide that show those for
you.
So what's in the University of Texas Emergency Plan?
It becomes the university's strategic operational plan.
It talks about all of our levels of emergencies, responses,
and readiness conditions.
It lays out the procedure for the establishment of command
control and communications.
It is based on the National Incident Management System,
or as we like to call NIMS.
It includes incident command, interagency cooperation,
and public information.
It contains a lot of the policies and procedure which
apply regardless of the type of the emergency.
We like to think of it as all hazards and flexible,
but the biggest thing to remember that the university's
Emergency Management Plan does notes not replace department's
responsibilities to develop their own emergency plans and
emergency actions.
Thank you very much for viewing these presentations on the
Campus Safety and Security System at the University of
Texas.
If you have any questions, please contact me at bharkins -
h-a-r-k-i-n-s - @austin.utexas.edu.
Thank you again for helping us make the campus safe and secure.