Achievement

Phillip Van Saun, director of Continuity and Emergency Services at UCSD held a seminar at the weekly student meeting on crisis management. Given that some of our field sites are located close to areas of increased political turmoil (especially in the middle east), van Saun provided guidance on: how to recognize and respond to the red flags of a crisis-prone culture; how to make incremental changes to mitigate the potential for a slow-burning problem to develop into a full-blown crisis; and how to apply the ‘battle-tested’ crisis management needs assessments, checklists, communication plans, talking-points, and crisis and continuity plans described in his book Failure is an Option: A Primer and Guide for Managing Crises. Students also participated in an exercise in worst-case scenario planning to actively apply the discussed techniques.