You’re reading a story from Sidelines 100, a project showcasing a century of student storytelling at Middle Tennessee State University. Sidelines 100 plans to highlight 100 stories from the newspaper archives this fall and spring.
This story originally ran in the Sep 12, 2002, edition of Sidelines. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay on top of all things Sidelines 100.
MTSU’s Division of Student Affairs has begun a new program to improve the campus’ response to student emergencies.
John David Hays, Dean of Student Life, said he saw the need to create a defined system for the way student crises should be handled by university authorities. Earlier this spring, he approached John Dickerson, assistant dean of Judicial Affairs and Mediation Services, about creating such a program.
“For a long time, we knew there was a need for [a] professional response to emergencies on campus,” Dickerson said. He noted that an unsuccessful program had been instituted five to six years ago by the then dean of Students, Tom Burke.
Hays said he felt it was time to revisit the program. “We need to look like we know what we’re doing in a crisis, who needs to help whom,” he said.
In the spring, Dickerson gathered a committee to improve the program. The committee was made up of various deans and heads of departments that would be directly involved in managing a campus emergency.
Dickerson was able to create an emergency plan based on the model of several other colleges, including the University of Alabama.
“I used to work at the University of Alabama, so I was familiar with their program,” he said. “I used their manual and changed it around a bit.”
The manual for the program is largely a list of phone numbers and contact names. It is organized to indicate who are the appropriate persons to contact in an emergency and what steps should be taken in certain situations.
The Student Affairs Crisis Response, or the “Dean Program,” creates levels of responsibility in a crisis. “Crisis includes cases such as physical injury, sexual assault, a suicide threat, a student death and emotional emergencies. In each case, there is hierarchy of who to call when.
“Housing is still the first response to an emergency,” Dickerson said. “If additional assistance is required, housing may call the next person listed in the manual.”
Dickerson and Hays see the function of the program and its manual as a way to create cohesiveness between campus authorities. Both noted that it will allow things to go much smoother in a crisis situation when everyone who should be there has their assigned job to do, and no unnecessary contacts are made or needless confusion created.
The program includes extending the deans’ job descriptions to after hours. A schedule is set for each dean to take a week to be on call after hours for emergencies. The dean for each week takes the responsibility to be on call from 4:30 p.m. until 8 a.m. each day of the week, and for 24 hours on the weekends.
“Our responsibilities are 24/7,” said Hays. “We expect to be wherever we need to be. Somebody can call us in the middle of the night if they have to.” The deans share a cell phone that serves as the on-call contact. Each week the cell phone is passed to the next dean scheduled.
Besides the immediate MTSU faculty, Dickerson has worked with the campus police department to familiarize them with the program.
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