PHILADELPHIA — Seven universities will participate in a national preparedness initiative designed to help campuses train for, respond to and recover from emergencies, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday.
Napolitano made the announcement in Philadelphia at Drexel University, which is among the schools chosen for the Campus Resilience Pilot Program. The effort seeks to help colleges develop and share best practices for responding to threats, violence or natural disasters.
“As we know from experience, a crisis on campus can happen without notice,” she said, “whether it’s an active shooter situation, a major disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake, or some other hazard that endangers lives.”
The initiative is part of the Obama administration’s effort to reduce gun violence, she noted. Her announcement comes two weeks before the sixth anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre, in which a student fatally shot 32 people before killing himself.
Napolitano wouldn’t specify how much the program will cost, saying only that the department is redeploying resources to pay for it.
The other six schools are Eastern Connecticut State University; Green River Community College in Auburn, Wash.; Navajo Technical College in Crownpoint, N.M.; Texas A&M University; Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss.; and the University of San Francisco.
The initiative will entail school administrators, students and community members working with homeland security and emergency management officials to assess campus safety, develop crisis plans and train responders. The strategies will be shared with colleges across the country.
