Playing It Safe
Since Sept. 11, Harvard has taken substantial measures to ensure that it is prepared to weather any emergency.
The University formed the IST—which is comprised of a dozen top school officials—implemented a comprehensive Crisis Management Plan, and tested the plan’s effectiveness using table-top drills and simulations.
Associate Vice President of Facilities and Operations Thomas E. Vautin says that in the past year the University has put together emergency management teams within Harvard’s different schools and departments to respond to more localized crises.
Harvard has also implemented a fast automatic emergency notification system for key administrators, the IST and the Crisis Management Team, according to Vautin, and created an official emergency website for the University that has been used as a source of information for the entire community.
This website has already been used to provide updates about the national terror alerts issued during the past semester.
Vautin says the whole process has been designed for easy updates and refinements when unexpected events such as SARS challenge the safety of the community.
In line with this goal of continuous improvement, Vautin says, the University is currently looking for the means to house and feed large numbers of students if dorms ever needed to be evacuated.
“The good news is that the new crisis management structure is positioned to identify these issues and act quickly to address them,” Vautin writes in an e-mail.
Vautin says the plans will be perfected next year as more specific responses are defined and tested.
More visible security precautions have also been taken at locations around the University this year, according to Vautin.
Security officers now check University IDs at the Holyoke Center, and a team of HUPD officers and security guards have a new post at the entrance to the Yard behind Widener.
Heightened security also marked last year’s Commencement exercises.
After a Palestinian activist and suspected terrorist was arrested in Harvard Square just a week before Commencement, the University instituted a “lock-down” during graduation exercises—installing metal detectors at Yard entrances and bringing state and federal agencies such as the National Guard and explosives experts with bomb-sniffing dogs.
But Catalano says HUPD won’t comment on specific security procedures for this year’s exercises.
“We will work with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to ensure that we maintain a safe and secure Commencement as we do with other major events that we handle,” he says.
—Staff writer Hana R. Alberts can be reached at alberts@fas.harvard.edu.