The winter storm of late 2022 caused difficulties for many US-based airlines, but none more so than Southwest Airlines. Like other airlines, Southwest canceled flights in the early stages of the storm. Their attempted recoveries failed due to procedural and technology issues. The airline was unable to cope with the magnitude of canceled flights,…

Natural disasters can negatively impact students' educational outcomes and well-being. After a natural disaster, families and communities often rely on schools to foster stability and serve as a conduit to resources. Yet, school principals face many challenges, often with little guidance, in how to best respond to natural disasters. This case…

The purpose of this Dissertation in Practice was to look at the patterns and trends of student enrollment, course hour load, and academic outcomes and explore student success interactions after the environmental shock of a natural disaster. Forming the setting for this study was a regional, commuter, university campus and its largely…

Principals encounter numerous crises, such as migration influxes. Relevant literature explains principals respond to these crises in a variety of ways. However, there is a dearth in the literature that examines what influences principals' responses through a crisis. The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative case study broadly asks, how, if…

The impacts of recurring disasters on vulnerable urban societies have been tragic in terms of destruction and fatalities. However, disaster risk education that promotes risk mitigation and disaster preparedness has been shown to be effective in minimizing the impacts of recurring disasters on urban societies. Although the recent integration of…

The behaviors of individuals on the issue of being able to cope with disasters are directly proportional to their level of preparedness and awareness. For this reason, revealing the individual's level of awareness on disasters is both the first phase of the studies to be carried out on this issue and an important contribution to the social…

This paper examines shifts in the knowledge production policy agenda at Japanese research universities -- a transition from discipline-based academic tradition towards interdisciplinary forms of knowledge production -- through a case study of a leading interdisciplinary research institute. We examine this transition through the case of Tohoku…

On 22 February 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake killed 185 people in Christchurch, New Zealand. On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck eastern Japan, and was followed by a devastating tsunami and a nuclear plant crisis. As of 16 November 2011, the official death toll in Japan had reached 15,839, with a further 3467 people still…

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which killed an estimated 316,000 people, offered many lessons in mass-fatality management (MFM). The dissertation defined MFM in seeking information and in recovery, preservation, identification, and disposition of human remains. Specifically, it examined how mass fatalities were managed in Haiti, how affected…

Despite a growing body of literature on campus crisis management and the breadth of research on organizational change, little is known about organizational changes prompted by campus crisis. The purpose of this study is to examine the changes made to the operational profiles of Gulf Coast institutions during the process of recovering from major…

This paper draws on Jean-François Lyotard's (1984) seminal study "The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge" to reflect on two macro-level catastrophes: the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2009 (and its continuing effects throughout the Eurozone and elsewhere) and Fukushima. These two case studies probe aspects of these grand…

The term "state of exception" has been used by Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben to explain the ways in which emergencies, crises and disasters are used by governments to suspend legal processes. In this paper, we innovatively apply Agamben's theory to the way in which countries prepare and educate the population for various…

There is little published literature on operational coordination during a real time disaster regardless of the setting. This study describes a university's emergency management plan and its execution in response to a specific natural disaster, the May 8, 2009 "inland hurricane," which was later classified as a "Super Derecho."…

Leaders of many institutions of higher education are not equipped to manage a major crisis or disaster, and presidential leadership during a disaster is essential, as university presidents are ultimately accountable for the well-being of their institutions. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, flooding 80% of the city for many weeks…

This article takes the form of a research report which examines personal resiliency and a sense of hope among educational leaders in times of extreme crises. Findings indicated that, despite the trauma of an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, school leaders were still able to find satisfying aspects in their jobs, and to display a range of…