Every day in America more than 50 million children go to neighborhood public schools. Parents send them off with every hope they will be safe while there. And yet, as has been the case in too many cities, violence shatters that hope. The Council of Educational Facilities Planners International (CEFPI) seeks to lead in the effort to bolster schools…

Purpose: Traditional evacuation drill is monotonous. Therefore, evacuation drill should be diversified to get more people interested in disaster prevention. Our idea is game-based evacuation drill using real world edutainment (RWE). This paper aims at clarifying how RWE-based evacuation drill is realized. Design/methodology/approach: RWE provides…

This study analyzed the emergency protocol and violence prevention methods utilized at an American university. The four research questions were: (1) What are the sources of violence at the university? a. How has the university addressed these sources? (2) What constitutes an emergency in the eyes of the university? (3) How do emergency protocols…

Emergency response agencies, which operate as command-and-control organizations, push information to members of the public with too few mechanisms to support communication flowing back. Recently, information communication technologies (ICTs) such as social media have challenged this one-way model by allowing the public to participate in emergency…

On a Thursday night in December 2010, a Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) first-year student stepped in front of a train and killed himself. Because it took some time for the news to reach campus and be confirmed, the student was "funeralized," as they say in the South, and buried before his professors or peers could be informed. That left…

Crises, whether human or natural, occur on all college campuses. Extensive research has been conducted on crisis preparedness at four-year, nondenominational institutions. This study examined crisis preparedness at Christian institutions of higher education. The study examined the perspectives of presidents of Christian institutions of higher…

We can expect climate change to alter the frequency, magnitude, timing, and location of many natural hazards. For example, heat waves are likely to become more frequent, and heavy downpours and flooding more common and more intense. Hurricanes will likely grow more dangerous, rising sea levels will mean more coastal flooding, and more-frequent and…

In this essay, Paul Vallas--education reform expert and key advisor to the government of Haiti in developing its national education plan--discusses his plan for Haiti. The paper explores the successes and challenges of education reform in Haiti, before and after the earthquake that devastated the nation in 2010. The essay describes the…

Teachers are a critical resource for children in refugee and emergency settings. Yet few studies have examined what motivates or demotivates teachers, especially in refugee and emergency contexts. In this article we explore the key findings from field research conducted in Algeria and Ethiopia by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) as part…

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college students; annually approximately 1,100 students in institutions of higher education die by suicide. However, most research related to college student suicide was conducted using the sample of 4-year institutions. Community colleges have seldom been included in the sample of suicide research…

The last decade has seen a growing recognition amongst international donors, development agencies, non-government organisations and academics of the vital role education can play in bringing about recovery following violent conflict, natural disaster and other crises. This has led to the development of increasingly targeted and sophisticated…

The postsecondary acts of violence at Virginia Technical University (VT) and Northern Illinois University (NIU) forced Illinois legislators to approve the "Campus Security Enhancement Act" in 2008 (110 ILCS 12/20). The "Act" requires all private and public postsecondary education institutions to develop a Campus Violence…

Ned Miller does not take security lightly. As director of campus safety and emergency management at the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC), any threat requires serious consideration. As community college administrators adopt a more proactive approach to campus safety, many institutions are experimenting with emerging technologies, including…

A complaint received by the Department of Education alleged that Virginia Tech violated the "timely warning" requirements of the Clery Act on April 16, 2007, by not issuing specific campus-wide alerts once senior officials knew of the immediate threat to health and safety. The complaint also alleged that the University's timely warning policy, as…

This document, written collaboratively by members of ACHA's Emerging Public Health Threats and Emergency Response Coalition and Campus Safety and Violence Coalition, is designed to assist members of the college health community in planning for emergencies using an all-hazards approach. Its perspective is both macro and micro, beginning with a…