Disaster Recovery

When developing and refining a business continuity plan, "you have to look beyond voice and data," urges Bryan Mehaffey, vice president of technology at Ave Maria University (Fla.). "You have to think about facilities and life safety." Campus buildings and the equipment they contain are worth millions of dollars and shouldn't be forgotten once students, faculty, and staff are safe.

Four feet of snow in a week might be awesome if you run a ski resort, but it causes havoc if you run a college or university campus. That is just the quandary campus leaders in the mid-Atlantic were dealing with in December 2009.

"We couldn't open campus," says Joy Hughes, CIO and vice president for information technology at George Mason University (Va.). "You couldn't drive around."

Natural and man-made disasters cause immediate harm and can also have an impact for months or years afterward. This article offers basic recommendations for pre- and post-disaster leadership, planning, preparation, and action to mitigate a disaster's effect, expedite your institution's recovery, and maximize the financial recovery process. Start with the premise that disasters do occur and pose serious challenges and problems for institutional leadership.

Many colleges and universities are confronting even more complex challenges than usual. Indeed, the timing, intensity, and consequences of some of the most serious challenges qualify them as outright crises.

Managing multiple difficult events such as salary freezes, budget cuts, job reductions, enrollment declines, and rising discount rates can seem overwhelming to even the most experienced among us. Can there be any doubt for higher education leaders that it truly is "lonely at the top" these days?

ON FEBRUARY 20, A MEMO threatening violence and referencing <b>Virginia Tech</b> was found taped to a hallway wall at <b>Saint Peter's College</b> in Jersey City, N.J., spurring a five-hour campus lockdown.

Bruce Grant, NEC’s assistant general manager for product management and an expert on VoIP, explains this technology and how to prepare for it.