Planning ahead can help protect your campus when natural disasters hit

NEW ORLEANS — Campus safety and emergency management professionals already have their hands full just managing the day-to-day of campus life. But when a natural disaster strikes campus, that could push things over the edge to become unmanageable — unless you have a solid plan in place beforehand. To point you in the right direction, a panel of seasoned professionals discussed their lessons learned at the annual conference for NASPA — Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. Having recently navigated hurricanes, floods, and wildfires on their campuses, Sheila Higgs Burkhalter, Vice President for Student Affairs at Winthrop University; Renee Dickens Callan, Assistant VP of Student Life at the University of Miami; and William Franklin, VP for Student Affairs at California State University-Dominguez Hills, shared their firsthand experience with disaster response. Jen Kosses, Associate VP and Dean of Students at Wentworth Institute of Technology, moderated the panel. The following excerpt of their discussion has been edited for space and clarity.