Over the past two months Emmanuel College, Simmons College, and Wentworth Institute of Technology have practiced their emergency response plans, specifically focusing on campus lockdown and shelter in place procedures. Each institution planned and executed different versions of shelter in place/lockdown exercises on their campuses in order to evaluate systems and develop “muscle memory” to these types of events across their communities.
March 6, 2018 – Wentworth performed a test of the external emergency alert speakers and lockdown system for all external doors across campus. Public Safety and Facilities personnel participated in and facilitated the test. This test identified excellent lockdown coverage across the campus and it also revealed some needed changes to the external speaker system.
March 29, 2018 – Simmons conducted a lockdown exercise on their academic campus. The entire on-campus Simmons community participated in the exercise. Simmons Public Safety facilitated the exercise and helped engage faculty and staff members that were unsure of how to respond. There was a great overall response from the community and it also served as an excellent training opportunity.
April 11, 2018 – Emmanuel College conducted a modified shelter in place exercise across all campuses. The entire Emmanuel community participated in the exercise. Campus Safety and Emergency Management Committee members facilitated the exercise and helped drive participation in the exercise across campus.
As with all exercises and systems tests, there are things that go well and there are areas for improvement identified. Each of these exercises has an after-action report that is reviewed by each institution’s Emergency Management Committee (or equivalent). All of these findings are addressed, prioritized and used to help us greatly improve our emergency response plans, training, and education across the Colleges of the Fenway.
The Colleges of the Fenway is committed to creating a safe and well prepared community and will continue to help coordinate these types of exercises at all COF institutions as we move forward in 2018.