Disasters happen worldwide, and it is necessary to engage emergency management agencies, health and social services, and community-based organizations in collaborative management activities to enhance community resilience. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been widely accepted in public health research as an approach to develop…

The purpose of the study was to examine hurricane emergency preparedness planning at institutions of higher learning of the Gulf South region following Hurricane Katrina. The problem addressed the impact of Hurricane Katrina on decision-making and policy planning processes. The focus was on individuals that administer the hurricane emergency…

Public transportation, with its open access, creates an opportunity for masses of people to be hurt while using transit services during human-made or natural disasters. This dissertation reviews the body of academic and professional literature and recent disaster events to characterize the current state of preparedness for disasters affecting…

The study researched the websites of the 50 state flagship higher education institutions to investigate whether and how online or distance learning were included in the institutions' emergency plans as solutions to emergencies such as H1N1. All 50 institutions had identical directions to students and staff on how to handle the H1N1 flu, but…

Tuesday, 22 February was the second day of the University of Canterbury (UC) in Christchurch, New Zealand 2011 academic year and the author was preparing lectures for Accounting Theory (ACCT311) in his sixth-floor office of the Commerce building when a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck. Although no university buildings collapsed, it soon became…

A freak blizzard, a mentally ill and armed student, a record-breaking flood. No matter how idyllic a campus may feel, no matter how cocooned the ivory tower, disaster can strike. If a campus is unprepared, it comes like a sucker punch, potentially turning a crisis into a tragedy of unimagined proportions--and causing reverberations that will be…

Academic technologists at Lynn University (Florida) learned the hard way just how important a disaster recovery plan can be. Back in 2005, when Hurricane Wilma walloped the region with driving rain and 120 mile-per-hour winds, the storm debilitated Lynn's IT department, causing damage and flooding that thwarted the campus network for nearly two…

A week after Hurricane Gustav unleashed its fury on Gulf Coast colleges, students and faculty members are returning to campuses where the disruption was minimized not only by the weakening of the storm, but also by the meticulous planning that went into evacuations. Campuses were emptied with lock-step precision--students were bused to evacuation…

Within an incredibly short period--perhaps less than twenty-four months--the need for emergency preparedness has risen to a higher level of urgency than at any other time in the history of academe. Large or small, public or private, higher education institutions are seriously considering the dual problems of notification and communications…

In this article, the author focuses on technology use related to campus crisis and shows the impact that newer technologies have on making the world seem much smaller and united. When crises occur, such as at Virginia Tech shootings or Hurricane Katrina, students across the United States and even the world reach out to one another through new…

Most colleges and universities are poorly prepared to efficiently address and manage crises. That is the finding of a survey, the results of which were in the January/February issue of the publication, "Change." The authors point to Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 terrorist attacks as wake-up calls to higher education and maintain both that campus…

This article outlines a set of recommendations to college and university leaders and governing bodies on how to develop crisis-management systems to ensure that their institutions are as well prepared as possible for a wide range of crises. These recommendations are based, in part, on crisis-management programs developed for various business…