A “Campus Safety Training Course” is now available on Moodle, the online training site for students, faculty and staff Scott Shuman, Director of Legal Affairs highly encourages every student, faculty and staff member to review the information and watch the “Shots Fired on Campus” video.
Shuman sent out an informational email Nov. 19 to all students, faculty and staff members about the Campus Safety Training Course. According to his email, the university engaged the Center for Personal Protection and Safety and is able to make available valuable information to help each of us develop the skills and mindset to respond to a critical incident.
“As of right now, the course is not required, but it is strongly encouraged,” Shuman said. “We had discussions in making the course more accessible for students as we move forward, but the main focus right now was to get the information out to students as quickly as possible.”
The Campus Safety Training Course has two lectures. The first lecture on the “Survival Mindset and Courses of Action” and the second on “Law Enforcement Response; Distinctions Between an Active Shooter and a Hostage Situation.”
According to the course, a survival mindset enables you to act quickly and effectively in an emergency situation and is a protective shield comprised of three components; awareness, preparation and rehearsal. The objectives in the first lecture are describing terms such as, “protective shield,” “figure out,” “get out,” “call out,” “hide out,” “keep out,” “spread out” and “take out.”
The objectives in the second lecture are explaining how to respond to law enforcement responders, describing k e y information needed by law enforcement responders, describing the distinctions between an active shooter and a hostage-taker, describing pre- incident indicators and behaviors of concern and describing preventive measures to avert violence.
The “Shots Fired on Campus” video is roughly 20 minutes, exemplifying the survival mindset.
A DVD about the course was made and is available to those interested in showing the video on campus. “Showing the DVD provides the opportunity to start discussions about this topic and start a discussion on how we would respond in an emergency situation,” Shuman said. “The most important thing to remind students is that this is still a very safe campus and each of us, including the local law enforcements are personally taking steps in creating a safe environment for everyone.”
In his email, Shuman mentioned that the university works to protect everyone by having trained Campus Public Safety officers available 24 hours a day, the Boxer Alert System, implementing a key card access for student housing, research and teaching labs as well as other buildings on campus, having an Emergency Planning Group which includes faculty, staff and students that meets regularly to evaluate and assess current conditions and update the Emergency Operations Plan, having a cooperative relationship with the local law enforcement and emergency management personnel, reviewing facilities to identify possible updates around campus and having ongoing projects that include updating lighting around campus.
In addition to watching the “Shots Fired on Campus” video and doing the Campus Safety Training Course on Moodle, Shuman encourages everyone to review the Emergency Operations Plan and to participate in the scheduled on-campus drills. A current plan is under review and will be coming out in spring or summer next year.
“The information [course and video] will provide a good foundation for knowing how to respond to any emergency situation,” Shuman said. “Secondly, the take-away is being aware of your surroundings and trusting your instincts.”
Drills including fire and lock down will start soon. Fire drills are scheduled to start in the first week of December and will end in January.
Shuman said they are still developing a more effective protocol for lock down drills, and are scheduled to start roughly before or after spring break.
If there are any questions about the Moodle course or “Shots Fired on Campus” video, contact Jerry Rice, Campus Public Safety officer or Shuman. For general questions, contact the Forest Grove Police Department.
Leave a Reply