Crisis Management Scenarios
BUTEX Symposium
Northumbria University
July 8, 2011
Scenario Number 1:
You have 11 students studying abroad at a university in a major city; due to a combination of torrential rain, heavy lightening and strong winds, a power outage occurs in that city. This also means there is no water. You find out about this when watching the news after arriving home from work; there are reports about gangs of armed looters in the outskirts of the city roaming through streets and breaking into shops and buildings.
You immediately check your work email inbox; one of your students has written a brief email, describing what he sees outside of the university accommodation. He knows of three other students in the accommodation, and of two who went out to the city center and is very scared. He describes that the rooms are connected by hallways open to the outside and mentions that, although the doors to the outside of the building usually close, he has twice found them ajar. He sends you his local mobile phone.
An email from International SOS reports the situation as being volatile, and recommends that people stay at home, lock all doors and pull curtains.
One of your colleagues lives very close to the university office.
Discussion Questions:
1.
What do you--the highest ranking representative in this instance --do in response to this incident?
2.
List, in sequence, the specific steps you yourself would take in response to this incident. Would you have all of the information and resources with you
(at home in the evening) that you would need in order to undertake each of the steps identified, or would you need to go to the office?
3.
Identify the documents, materials, resources and information you would need in order to respond to this crisis.
4.
What are your objectives in the first hour of responding to this crisis?
Scenario Number 2 :
You are fast asleep at home on a Saturday morning, after a week of strenuous summer programme coordination. You are running the summer programmes in conjunction with a local university; luckily your colleague from that university is in charge this weekend.
You know that the US group, led by a US academic who is partially teaching on the programme, is taking a group of students on a day trip to a range of mountains.
You are awoken by a phone call from the police at 7am, letting you know that the bus had a major accident, that a number of students are seriously injured, that others have minor injuries and that the accompanying academic has died. One of the students gave the police your name and they were able to track down your home number.
You are not able to reach your colleague from the partner university via his mobile.
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Discussion Questions:
1.
How do you proceed? What steps will you take, in sequence, in order to respond to the crisis in compliance with your office’s crisis management protocols?
2.
You receive a phone call from the university police, alerting you that they have started receiving telephone calls from local and international television and print media reporters asking you to comment on the accident and to provide details regarding the death and injuries. The reporters also ask what you and university are doing in response to the crisis and whether you have accounted for all of the other students on the field trip. The police asks for someone from the International Office to please come to the university. What do you say, what do you do?
3.
Once in the office, not unexpectedly, you also are receiving frantic calls from relatives of the students (for some parents, it is the middle of the night in the
US) on the program. They want to know whether their students were injured or killed. What do you tell them?
Scenario Number 3:
A number of your students have applied for an Erasmus semester at a university in Paris.
You know that they are about to leave for France because you received a phone call from one of them in the morning, telling you that her flight is delayed and that she is afraid that she might miss orientation, starting that afternoon. At 2pm that afternoon, French television and radio stations report that there have been 3 unconfirmed reports of explosions on the Metro at various locations throughout the City, as well as an unconfirmed report of an airport shuttle bus exploding on the Avenue de Champs-
Elysees. An eyewitness tells a reporter that she saw the bus explode in a fire-ball and that there did not appear to be any survivors at the scene.
Discussion Questions:
1.
List, in sequence, the specific steps you and your staff would take in response to this crisis.
2.
How would you reach the students under the circumstances?
3.
How would you account for their location and safety?
4.
What would you tell each student when you reach them regarding: a.
Where to go? b.
What to do? c.
How to communicate with you and your staff? d.
Whether to use public transportation in the short-term?
5.
You receive a telephone call from a reporter from The Guardian . She asks you to comment on the apparent bombings, how they are likely to affect study abroad, what you are doing in response to the crisis, and whether you have accounted for all your students in Paris. What is your response?
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6.
About an hour later you receive a telephone call from a worried parent whose daughter is not answering her cell phone in the wake of the reported bombings. The parent says it is not like her daughter not to answer her phone. You have not yet been able to locate this particular student. What do you tell her mother?
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