Recent world events have brought fresh attention to college and university emergency planning. Penn State has historically been one of the safest universities in the country, but one person can change that in a matter of seconds. In addition to governmental and institutional emergency planning, personal and family emergency planning is critical.
At Penn State, planning for the unforeseen is part of our normal routine and has been for decades. The safety of students, faculty and staff has been, and continues to be, a top priority. Penn State has an established emergency management team to oversee crises. It includes senior members of the university administration, who can be mobilized on short notice. Emergency planning is an ongoing and continuous process.
At all Penn State campuses, extensive efforts are taken to promote a safe and secure place for living and learning. Recognizing that each campus's needs are unique, campus leadership works closely with local government and service providers to ensure catastrophes, unforeseen events, and emergencies can be addressed in an appropriate fashion. Again, this is an ongoing and continuous process.
Rapid response and effective communications are absolutely necessary in the event of an emergency. Penn State has developed University-wide communications, as well as at the individual campus level. Penn State has one of the most sophisticated systems for communicating with students, employees and the general public in American higher education.
The Penn State Newswire delivers e-mail based news stories and announcements to almost 600,000 subscribers in more than 120 countries. That system is tied into the Penn State Live news web site (live.psu.edu) which can deliver stories, videos, photos and podcasts to people around the world.
In addition, Penn State was one of the first universities in the nation to launch a text-message news service (PSUTXT) in 2006 and that service is quickly expanding to tens of thousands of cell phone subscribers. This system allows campus officials to immediately notify subscribers of important information via cellular text messaging or e-mail.
To sign up for this free service, go to: http://newswires.psu.edu/.
At Penn State Brandywine, up-do-date information can be found on our website http://www.de.psu.edu/, or by calling 610-892-1275.
Individuals are encouraged to develop their own personal and family emergency plan. Useful information is available at the following links:
http://www.fema.gov/plan/index.shtm