NSU’s Office of Public Safety and the Town of Davie Public Safety First Responders have teamed up to run a training exercise, involving first responders, students and staff, which will simulate an active shooter situation, April 9 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Rosenthal Student Center.
Called the NSU Main Campus Emergency Response Practice Drill, organizers hope the role play will help first responders become better prepared to respond to real crises.
Richard Walterman, associate director of emergency management for Public Safety, said “It will give the first responders, both Davie Police and Davie Fire, opportunities to use their response protocols to go into a facility at the university and make sure they keep as many people safe as possible and respond to that threat.”
Around 40 students will be part of the role play, acting as students who were in Rosenthal when the shooter entered the building.
“God forbid we actually have a situation like this on campus, they’ll be doing the same kinds of things that victims would be doing if they found themselves in a similar situation,” said Walterman.
“Some of the students will be running out the door, saying ‘Help, he’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!’ Some students will be hiding, barricaded in a room. And some of them may actually role play as injured victims.”
Aarika Camp, executive director of Student Services and director of Residential Life and Housing, helped recruit student participants. She said that she looked for students with a variety of interests, who are part of different social circles.
“What I’ve done is try to get a cross section of students,” Camp said. “I’ve reached out to some athletes, Greeks, student government members, resident assistants and regular everyday students who aren’t terribly involved because we also want them to communicate to their classmates how to react on campus when something happens, who the resources are.”
Jameela Wilson, sophomore biology major, was happy to volunteer after Camp told her about the drill.
“I really hope to learn what exactly NSU’s plans are, for my own personal safety and for the safety of my friends,” Wilson said. “It will put my mind at ease to know that I am very safe on this campus.”
Christian Vasquez, freshman, hopes that participating will provide him with insight into how first responders handle injuries, which interests him as an athletic training major. He’s also simply curious about the drill, due to its novelty.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this before, so I thought I’d give it a try,” he said.
Camp is part of the NSU Crisis Response and Emergency Management Task Force, a group of about 25 people, including students and staff from the Undergraduate Student Government Association, PAN-SGA, the Office of Residential Life and Housing, the Division of Student Affairs, the Office of Facilities Management and other offices of the university. The task force meets biweekly to plan training exercises and recommend emergency protocols.
Though Camp said that the group has gone through “tabletops,” in which they role-play crisis situations in their meeting space, they’ve yet to do anything as extensive as the upcoming drill, which she hopes will have a more widespread impact on every student.
“I think the drill impacts students in knowing that their university cares about their safety,” she said. “I think it impacts them in knowing that we’re being precautionary instead of always reactive. I think it’s important for students to know that there are plans in place to make sure they’re as safe as possible. If something were to happen, the university would know how to react appropriately.”
Although the Rosenthal Student Center will be closed throughout the drill’s duration, the Don Taft University Center will remain open. Walterman said the organizers selected Rosenthal because it’s in a very active area of campus, allowing many passers-by to see that the drill is occurring, yet, it won’t be as disruptive as closing down the UC.
Camp also sees it as an educational opportunity, encouraging students to think of their own response procedures.
“I think students should be aware that, just because they’re in college, it doesn’t mean they’re immune to anything. Sometimes college students feel that way. I think back to when I was 18. I wasn’t thinking about all the things that could possibly happen to me,” she said. “I think this will put students on alert that anything could happen and so they need to have their own personal plans of what they would do, though the university also has plan.”
Yet, she stressed that the drill isn’t intended to scare anyone.
“It’s to make students aware and make the university aware,” she said.
According to Walterman, first responders will also use this drill to evaluate their procedures.
“We’re going to have controllers who will make sure that the exercise moves forward the way it’s supposed to move forward, and we’re going to have evaluators, sort of like note-takers, who’ll capture data about the exercise and how it happened,” he said. “And with that information, we’re going to create a report to explain where we stand, what additional training we could benefit from, and where we’ve experienced real success.”
