Higher Education In Emergencies

Championing a variety of the lessons taken from across the globe, this book acts as a critical toolkit for preparing universities for the next pandemic, earthquake, or civil conflict.

Championing a variety of the lessons taken from across the globe, this book acts as a critical toolkit for preparing universities for the next pandemic, earthquake, or civil conflict.

Championing tangible action and its measurable impacts, this book provides a critical toolkit for preparing universities for the next pandemic, earthquake, or civil conflict.

There are over 4,000 two-and four-year public and private institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the United States totaling over 15 million students and several million staff, faculty, and visitors (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2006). Each of these institutions has a commitment to ensure the safety and general welfare of those on their campuses and to provide appropriate policies, procedures, and strategies to maintain a safe campus. Because of recent violent crimes, natural disasters, and other emergencies or crises, colleges and universities are convening committees and task forces to reexamine or conduct a comprehensive review of policies, procedures, and systems related to campus safety and security. As with many critical areas on the agendas of administrators, campus safety requires building support and conducting a thorough and systematic process to produce a quality plan to prepare for and manage emergencies on campus. IHEs have many challenges in practicing emergency management that are related to the distinctive structure and environment of higher education. College and university campuses often cover large geographic areas, and sometimes even resemble small towns with the full extent of services in their vicinity (i.e., medical centers, sports complexes, residential centers, businesses). The campus population changes from day to day, semester to semester, and year to year. Many IHEs operate complex enterprises in addition to their academic programs. Hospitals, research and development facilities, performing arts venues, athletic complexes, agriculture centers, residential complexes, food services, and transportation systems all present a unique set of circumstances that must be considered when designing emergency management plans. These structural and environmental characteristics pose challenges for access control, monitoring movements, defining boundaries for facilities and grounds, standardizing procedures and decision-making processes, and prioritizing resource allocations. IHE governance is also highly varied, complex, and often widely dispersed. Decentralized organizational structures and academic departments may be located in different buildings and have differing decision-making methods. The nature of higher education institutions, with faculty involvement in the governance process, is much different than the hierarchical structure of corporate entities or governmental agencies. Decision-making in such an environment can be slow, and hinder campus response to a crisis. The need for clear lines of authority and decision-making are all the more important at IHEs. Responsibility for developing, testing, and implementing an emergency management plan should be shared and communicated across all departments and functions. This Action Guide for Emergency Management at Higher Education Institutions has been developed to give higher education institutions a useful resource in the field of emergency management. It is intended for community colleges, four-year colleges and universities, graduate schools, and research institutions associated with higher education entities, both public and private. This action guide may be used in a variety of ways: As a starting point in researching the topic of emergency management for those needing an overview of the subject; As a resource for an initiative to develop and implement an emergency management plan at a higher education institution; or As a reference and resource for colleges and universities looking to evaluate their emergency management programs to identify potential areas needing enhancement.

Offering insights into the adaptational strategies that were employed by higher education institutions worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic, this volume considers the lasting effects of adaptation and change, as well as the perception of universities’ role in society and desired ways of operating. Nearly overnight, the pandemic forced university leaders and faculty across the world to switch to remote models, not only of teaching and learning but also of managing an entire institution. This book recognizes how the scale of challenges as well as the range of measures specific universities had to undertake was uneven, with some being better equipped than the others. Using a selection of international case studies, it offers an insight into strategies employed by institutions worldwide to navigate the crisis, and highlights the targets and objectives addressed by them during these processes. In so doing, it offers invaluable lessons for the years to come. An indispensable study into strategies that result in resilience and sustainability for universities, this book is essential reading for scholars of education, pedagogy, and organizational change in the higher education sector, as well as educational leaders around the world.

Decades after many national higher education systems strove to widen access internally to under-represented groups, this book offers new international comparative insights on the way higher education can meet external demands from people experiencing chosen or unchosen displacement, while taking hold of the specific challenges raised by their linguistic and cultural diversity.

This book offers a critical review of higher education and post-conflict recovery. It provides the first systematic study with a global scope that investigates the role of higher education systems in conflict-affected contexts. The first part of the book analyses the long-standing neglect of higher education in post-conflict recovery, the impact that conflict can have on the sector, and efforts to rebuild and reform higher education systems affected by violent conflict. The second part of the book considers the positive and negative contributions that higher education can make to a range of areas of recovery including humanitarian action, forced displacement, post-conflict reconstruction, statebuilding, and peacebuilding. With its reasoned defence of the importance of higher education for post-conflict recovery, the book will appeal to researchers, university students, and humanitarian and development policy-makers and practitioners.