Marquette University is committed to providing the safest environment possible in which to learn, live and work. One of the areas the university has focused on over the past five years has been crisis management preparation to improve the university’s response to critical events and take steps to prevent crisis situations in the future. Leading the charge is a cross-unit Crisis Management Team that meets monthly.
About the Crisis Management Team
Co-chaired by Assistant Chief of Marquette University Police Department Jeffrey Kranz and Chief Marketing and Communication Officer Lynn Griffith, the CMT comprises nearly 40 individuals from units and departments across the university, including representatives from University Academic Senate and University Staff Senate.
“In late 2019, MUPD and the Office of Marketing and Communication discussed forming a Crisis Management Team to focus on emergency preparedness,” Kranz says. “We met a few times, and then in March 2020, we utilized the framework we had established to respond to a real-life crisis: the global COVID-19 pandemic. We learned that regularly meeting and interacting as a team really strengthened the quality and effectiveness of our crisis response.”
Annual crisis drill, regular debriefs test university preparedness
One of the team’s most visible and impactful improvements has been reinstituting an annual crisis drill to test preparedness with a real-time, simulated scenario. The topic of the annual crisis drill is kept secret from participants — including the provost and executive vice president and chief operating officer — until participants arrive for the drill, making the response and nerves more realistic. Participants engage in decision-making, prioritization and collaboration during tense situations, under time pressures and with limited and/or inaccurate information, simulating what happens in real crisis events.
Recent crisis drills have focused on an active shooter situation, a chemical leak requiring evacuation of a large area of campus, civil unrest and a significant cybersecurity situation. At each of the annual drills, the CMT has invited an outside party (e.g., another AJCU school, the county emergency management team, etc.) to observe the drill and provide feedback to the group. While there is always room for improvement, a consistent theme observers comment on is how well the team collaborates, especially in high-stakes, difficult situations.
“Seeing 50 people from across the university come together and really buy into the crisis drill scenario shows how seriously people take this preparation,” says Joel Pogodzinski, executive vice president and chief operating officer, who participates in the annual crisis drill. “It’s a chance for us to strengthen our emergency response muscles so that in a real crisis event, we have muscle memory and strong relationships built up over time. A lot of responding effectively to a crisis comes down to trusting your colleagues and utilizing lessons learned from similar situations.”
In addition to the annual crisis drill, the team also regularly debriefs incidents that happened on campus, such as the recent gas leak in October 2024, as well as crisis situations that take place at other universities or similar institutions. For example, the team recently discussed the higher education response to the southern California wildfires and plans to do a full debrief at a future meeting.
“We are focused on continuous improvement — what worked, what didn’t and what can we change to be better prepared next time,” Griffith says. “We had an officer come in and talk to us about the incident at the Waukesha parade a few years ago, and we had someone who helped manage an active shooter situation at a university talk to the team. Hearing those firsthand accounts allows us to apply key learnings and identify gaps in our own processes.”
Building emergency initiative underway this spring
As a result of the CMT debrief following the gas leak in fall 2024, the team identified a gap in knowledge of the university’s building emergency plans for evacuation and shelter-in-place orders.
As a result, Dennis Daye, director of environmental health and safety and CMT member, and Kranz are now leading an effort to update the university’s building emergency plans this semester. Building Emergency Coordinators were identified for every building on campus, and in-person training for these individuals happened in January. The BECs will now:
- Develop plans specific to their buildings, identify evacuation and shelter-in-place locations
- Identify multiple Safety Marshals per building, who would help ensure proper protocols are followed in the event of an evacuation or shelter-in-place order. Training for Safety Marshals will take place in March.
- Provide visibility into these efforts and safety protocols for evacuation or shelter-in-place situations for occupants of their building(s)
Outcomes of the Crisis Management Team’s work
The CMT’s work is organized around the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s preparedness framework: prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery. Examples of the CMT’s progress to-date include:
- Conducted an assessment of potential threats the university may face
- Updated the Safety Alert process, including adding alerts notifying of a large presence of law enforcement in the area and offering the option for parents to sign up for Safety Alert texts
- Developed a new university safety website for easy access to information
- Developed and distributed a university Crisis Management Plan to LEAD members/offices across campus
- Developed and distributed a university Crisis Communication Plan to senior leaders
- Posted location and MUPD contact information in classrooms and meeting rooms to improve law enforcement response times in a crisis, based on key learnings from other universities
- Instituted and manage an annual test of the campuswide automatic door lockdown system
- Engaged a vendor who can provide call center staffing, reunification center staffing and remote safety check-ins for students, faculty and staff
- Defined Emergency Operations Center locations both on- and off-campus
- Developed a list of emergency vendors for shelter, transportation, food, etc. in the event of a large-scale emergency
Want to learn more?
If you’re interested in learning more, Kranz and Griffith are available to present on the CMT’s work at a college, department or office meeting. If you’d like to discuss how your unique talents and abilities can contribute to the university’s emergency preparedness efforts, please contact Stacy Tuchel, executive assistant in the Office of Marketing and Communication.
