By Debbie Crawford (PIO) & Steve Rozanski (Risk Manager)
In light of recent violence on college campuses, awareness of our college’s emergency preparedness is more important than ever. Over the years the college has been regularly improving its emergency plans and training, and understanding your role – as a student, an employee or a community member visiting a campus – can help yourself and others in the event of any emergency.
Standard Response Protocol
In each classroom and in meeting rooms there is a “Standard Response Protocol” document prominently posted that highlights key points addressing Lockout, Lockdown, Evacuate, Shelter, and Medical emergencies. In addition, residence hall students must attend a required meeting about safety at which staff review key safety policies, procedures and expectations with residents.
Security & Fire Safety Report
On our public website we post our annual Security & Fire Safety Report, which addresses how to report a crime or emergency, security awareness programs for students and employees, and much other information regarding safety at the college. Students receive annual notifications of this report. This report can be found at: https://coloradomtn.info/about-cmc/right-know/
Emergency Response Plan
The college has adopted an Emergency Response Plan. This plan, tailored for each of the 11 CMC learning locations and Central Services, includes response procedures for medical, environmental and situational (or human-caused) emergencies. The situational emergency response procedures address a variety of threats including acts of violence, hostage situations, intruders, persons with weapons, threats and domestic situations.
These location-based plans include guidelines on when to implement the plan and who is involved in the implementation, depending on the type of emergency. Employees can find these plans on the MyCMC portal; the plans will be revised and migrated to the new Basecamp portal in coming months.
Drills and training
Fire drills are conducted at minimum annually. Emergency response training and drills have been a focus of the college for the past several years and are now being done at minimum annually, as well. College staff routinely provide employees with security and access training regarding lockdown procedures, fire evacuations, paging and alarm systems.
Emergency alert system
We have in place an emergency alert system, CMC Alert, which is tested at each campus and Central Services several times per year, using phone, text and/or email to notify students and employees of any campus closure or emergency. If you are a student or employee, please ensure that your contact information is up to date. Students should talk to the front desk staff at their campus to update their contact information; employees self-maintain their contact information through Webadvisor.
Other safeguards
We have put together many other safety programs and features. For instance, we have hired security guards at some locations for late nights and/or weekends. We employ a card access system to most of our buildings, which has special features in the event of a lockdown. We also have classroom and building loudspeaker systems, security cameras for public areas of some locations, outdoor sirens and fire alarm systems, which we test periodically.
Support systems, like CMC Cares
Perhaps most importantly, we have systems in place to help us stay abreast of and positively support members of our community. We employ student conduct codes that support a safe campus and residence halls.
We also have CMC Cares, a system to identify and support students or others of concern, which is accessible via our website. To access the system, go to coloradomtn.edu, use the pulldown menu under Canvas/Tools, and select CMC Cares. Reports from this system are routed to appropriate campus representatives plus the assistant vice president for student services to triage and resolve. Teams are formed as necessary to assess the person of concern (student, community member, employee) and level of risk and/or threat, and to initiate an appropriate response. Responses are on a case-by-case basis and range from referral to counseling services all the way to an immediate intervention via local law enforcement.
Counselors and resources
All CMC college counselors are trained to provide basic intervention and referral services for students and have close working relationships with community mental health agencies such as Mind Springs Health and Solvista Health through formal student assistance programs (SAP). As a part of the SAP contract with the college, the agencies provide 24-hour crisis response. College counselors may refer students to these agencies for a limited number of sessions for therapy, psychiatric evaluation or psychiatric medication management. As is the national trend, CMC has experienced an increase in the number of students utilizing mental health services and continues to work toward connecting students with accessible, affordable services so they can persist with their academic goals.
By becoming familiar with the college’s emergency response plans and systems, keeping your CMC Alert contact information current, and taking part in any available trainings at your campus or location, you can take an active role in supporting our community.
Note that at any time, if there is an immediate need for help, please call 911.
For more information on Colorado Mountain College’s risk management and emergency protocols, please contact Steve Rozanski, CMC risk manager, at srozanski@coloradomtn.edu.