Chapter 21: Emergency Management

Emory maintains an Emergency Information Reference Guide to help the university community plan for and respond to campus emergencies. The guide supplies the basic guidelines to manage most emergencies on campus including information about accessing police, fire assistance, ambulance; fire; evacuation; weather; civil disturbance/demonstration; aircraft/rail disaster; hazardous materials incident; hazardous device/bomb threat; violent or criminal behavior; utility failure; psychological crisis; and medical crisis. Other areas of campus have specific procedures that should also be followed in those areas. 

To report emergencies (police, fire, EMS) from an on-campus phone, please dial 911 or 7-6111 and from an off-campus phone, dial 404-727-6111. 

The Emory Police also may be contacted by using one of the emergency blue light phones, residence hall call boxes, or emergency elevator phones located throughout the campus. To use an emergency blue light phone, simply press the button to be connected automatically to a police dispatcher. 

Use the phone numbers listed below only for non-emergency situations. To find out more information about emergency services at Emory University, please consult the following list:

• Emory Police Department | 404-727-8005
• Emory University Hospital: Emergency Department | 404-712-7100
• Emory Emergency Medical Service (EMS) | 404-727-0180
• Campus Map
• Environmental Health and Safety | 404-727-5922
• Facilities Management Services | 404-727-7463
• Faculty Staff Assistance Program | 404-727-4328
• Fire Safety | 404-727-7378
• Inclement Weather Hotline | 404-727-1234
• Ombuds Office | 404-727-1531
• Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR) | 404-712-1300
• Partner Violence (FSAP) | 404-727-4328
• Security Escort | 404-727-8005
• Sexual Assault | Institutional Equity and Compliance (Title IX) 404-727-0541 | Office of Respect Hotline 470-270-5360
• Student Counseling Center | 404-727-7450
• Student Health Services | 404-727-7551
• University Communications | 404-727-6216

In 2012, Emory became certified as a "Safe Community" by the National Safety Council. The university was the second university in the world to obtain this honor. The Emory Safety Alliance (ESA) was formed to create and sustain a group that embodies the idea of a "culture of safety" in alignment with Emory University's Strategic Plan. In addition to maintaining the Safe Communities America designation, the ESA serves as a means for documenting data sources, programming, and initiatives related to safety promotion and injury reduction to ensure centralized collaboration. The website also lists involved campus organizations you can contact for specific program information. 

The complexity of the challenges posed by catastrophic events, both natural and human-caused, requires thoughtful, innovative leadership and action, qualities that are abundant in Emory's vibrant intellectual community. 

CEPAR serves as the center for Emory enterprise-wide planning for and coordinated response to catastrophic events, partnering with experts and resources at Emory and the broader community to address all hazards, including natural and human-caused disasters and public health emergencies. CEPAR has put together an excellent resource on campus emergencies: Emory’s Just-in-Time Guide to Campus Emergencies. 

The objectives of CEPAR are to: bridge existing operational, educational and research activities of Emory relevant to planning, response, mitigation, and recovery from catastrophic events; exercise all the relative components of the Emory enterprise in delivering an orchestrated response to a catastrophic event; catalyze development of novel, multidisciplinary solutions for the mitigation of threats; enhance opportunities for enterprise-wide collaboration; and enhance collaboration with community partners. 

CEPAR coordinates the Emory Emergency Notification Program, a multimodal system for alerting students, staff, faculty, and visitors of an emergency affecting the Emory community. The wide array of notification options affords Emory the flexibility to convey emergency information in the most appropriate manner and provides redundancy to help ensure the message gets out. Not all emergencies require all of the notification components to be engaged simultaneously. Notification components include outdoor sirens/public address system, e-notify system (which includes text messages sent to your cell phone), Emory email, Emory emergency information page, and Emory cable TV banner/messages. 

Emory University has a Threat Assessment Team that serves as a resource for faculty, staff, and students who are aware of or who are experiencing threatening or potentially threatening, disruptive, or otherwise troubling behavior occurring in the community. This team serves as a point of contact, provides resources, and investigates and responds to concerns. They do not, however, serve as a direct response group, mandate treatment, render disciplinary sanctions, or provide direct treatment. Faculty who have concerns about a colleague, student, or employee whose behavior, comments, writings, attendance, etc., are troubling/worrisome, should contact the chief of the Emory Police Department or the Vice President and Dean of Campus Life or an appropriate mental health service (including the Emory University Counseling Center), so that others can assist in getting help for that person or otherwise handle the matter. Faculty may share information about concerning behavior in order to assure that there is a full picture of the situation associated with the individual in question.

Unique opportunities, such as those outlined in Emory's vision statement, cannot be compromised by adverse occurrences that may jeopardize or hinder Emory's ability to realize its vision. Risk, in one form or another, is present in virtually all worthwhile endeavors. Emory University recognizes that not all risk is bad; thus, Emory's goal is not to eliminate all risk, for by doing so Emory would limit productive activity. Rather, Emory's goal is to assume risk judiciously, mitigate it when possible, and prepare itself to respond effectively and efficiently when necessary. 

The following principles are designed to help Emory University accomplish the goals: (1) Emory upholds an early-warning system for identification of adverse occurrences; (2) All individuals are empowered to report problems and concerns early on, without fear of retribution; (3) Report of adverse occurrences are responded to promptly and thoroughly; (4) Investigations of adverse occurrences, complaints, and concerns are conducted with integrity and continue until the fact-finding process is concluded; (5) Reliable and useful information is shared with leadership and other key constituencies; (6) Communication with the Emory community and the public at large is proactive, honest, and respectful of individual privacy; and, (7) Emory maintains a framework for regularly assessing the effectiveness of risk management practices and a culture that fosters process improvement when indicated. These are the principles to which we hold ourselves, and those with whom we partner. 

Emory University's Enterprise-wide Risk Management process, overseen by the Senior Director of Risk and Insurance Services and the Chief Audit Officer, seeks to implement these principles with the following process: (1) each year, eight ERM Subcommittees, each consisting of a handful of administrators organized around subject matter areas (Finance and Investment, Academic and Student Affairs, Governance and Corporate Affairs, Campus Safety and Physical Plant, Human Resources, Information Technology, Research, and Healthcare) identify, analyze, and communicate about risks in their respective areas; (2) the ERM Steering Committee, consisting of operational VPs and other senior administrators, reviews the list, eliminates duplicates, consolidates similar exposures, edits descriptions for consistency, reduces and assesses the frequency and severity of each risk; (3) a list of the key risks is shared with the ERM Executive Committee, chaired by the President and consisting of senior executives, including the CEO of Emory Healthcare, which sets the general direction and reviews the entire range of risks facing Emory; (4) a Risk Management Process Owner, defined as the person at Emory "sufficiently familiar with the risk and best positioned to execute a comprehensive Risk Management Plan," is assigned to each risk and instructed to prepare a Risk Management Plan; (5) each year, every key risk is presented to the ERM Executive Committee at a series of "risk hearings,", at the conclusion of which any "gaps" between Emory's risk tolerance and Emory's current status with respect to specific risks are identified and action plans are developed. 

Finally, periodic reevaluation of the list of risks is contemplated. Inherent in the ERM framework is the recognition that priorities change over time; therefore, the list of key risks is expected to change in response to changes in the operating environment.