Northwest Vista College, under the leadership of Vice President of College Services Julie Pace, has been working hard over the last few months to plan and improve our Safety and Emergency Response processes.
NVC has collaborated with the district and four sister colleges to share ideas and provide better safety for all students and employees. This has happened under the guidance of the new emergency services leader at the district, Rick Tobin. He has helped to improve our knowledge and ability to prepare for a range of emergencies.
Currently our NVC model provides for a Crisis Action Team (CAT) and Building Action Teams (BAT). The CAT is the leadership team that promotes and approves emergency and safety processes for the college. The Building Action Teams are small teams located in each of our buildings. They are responsible for guiding and protecting life during an emergency. Over the years, our Building Action Teams have evacuated buildings as well as coordinated drills for “take shelter” and lock down processes.
In fall 2012, NVC began to supplement these campus actions by learning about and implementing the Incident Command Structure (ICS). This is a national structure that is used at the local, state and federal levels to respond to a range of emergencies. To date, we have approximately 25 employees participating in the ICS structure. Approximately 60 percent of the NVC employees have completed their required ICS training to date. The rest are on their way to completion this month.
Upcoming activities to support campus safety include: quarterly CAT meetings to manage and guide safety activities; evacuation, lock-down and take shelter drills conducted by the BAT; completion of district led ICS table top drills and additional training; completion of active shooter drills for faculty and staff; and completion of the automatic lock installation on all buildings by the Facilities staff. Each of these activities will be assessed upon completion and improvements identified and put into place as needed.