Friday Focus: Recent events reinforce exercise planning

Nov. 4, 2022

— By Julie Queen, vice chancellor for administrative services

Although I have written about emergency preparedness previously, with this week’s news of the events at Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, and another school in the Eagle River area, student safety and emergency response is top of mind.

As many may know, on Wednesday afternoon there was a 911 call reporting an active shooter at LHS, which thankfully turned out not to be the case. The University Police Department was part of the response. No injuries were reported, and the Fairbanks Police Department indicated the call appeared to be a hoax.

This situation is unsettling. It puts stress on the community, and particularly on parents and students. It emphasizes the importance of being prepared and to know how to act, or react. Although emergencies can be unpredictable, knowing what to do can help save lives. Along these lines, UAF has been planning an Active Shooter training exercise that will occur next week. This is an exercise only and has been planned over the last eight months.

The upcoming UAF exercise is called “AlaskaEx 2022” and is sponsored by UAF, along with the Alaska  Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Federal Emergency Management Agency. UAF law enforcement, Fire/EMT, and our Emergency Manager are partnering with representatives from local, state, federal, tribal, non-governmental, and private sector organizations to participate in the exercise.

On Nov. 8, there will be a functional exercise scheduled for the core cabinet team. This exercise will allow the chancellor and executive leadership team to evaluate capabilities, make decisions, simulate deployment of resources, and respond to new developments. The following day on Nov. 9, a full-scale exercise will involve multiple agencies to work through the facets of preparedness, including cooperative systems with respect to incident response and recovery. Notices will be provided signaling the exercise.

The reason we practice this is to consider possible scenarios and learn from them to further refine protocols, including protection, prevention, response and recovery partnerships, in the event an emergency were to occur. Similar to how the recent activity involved responses from a variety of agencies, this exercise will focus on a Whole Community approach that includes how we each evaluate our current plans and capabilities, and helps improve how we respond to future events.

In the event you or someone you know is in need of support, take advantage of available resources. We have CARE case managers in the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities, counselors at Student Health and Counseling, and employee assistance plan access to counselors through BetterHelp. The upcoming exercise will help UAF demonstrate our commitment to a safe campus and will help us meet our annual training and reporting requirements of the Clery Act. Please keep an eye out for more communication in preparation for this exercise next week.

Friday Focus is written by a different member of UAF’s leadership team every week.