1:26 p.m., Oct. 22, 2010----Although the University of Delaware and the University of Waikato, in Hamilton, New Zealand, are about 9,000 miles apart, they share many of the same concerns about campus safety and wellness issues.

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During a recent visit to UD, Katria Raffan, health and safety coordinator at the University of Waikato, met with representatives of UD's Office of Campus and Public Safety and the Disaster Research Center to discuss issues ranging from emergency preparedness to employee wellness programs.

Located on New Zealand's north island, the University of Waikato has 13,000 students and 1,500 staff members. About 5,000 students live on campus.

“Communications and emergency planning are certainly big areas for us,” Raffan said. “Another area of concern is finding the fastest and most efficient way to lock down a very public campus if we need to.”

Marcia Nickle, emergency preparedness manager in the Office of Campus and Public Safety, noted that UD has enhanced an emergency preparedness program that includes an emergency notification system, UD Alert, which provides emergency information quickly to students, faculty and staff through several electronic communication options.

“We had to plan how to handle situations that include bomb threats or the presence of an active shooter on campus,” Nickle said. “If the president decides to cancel classes, we have to let the UD community know, so we do this by text messaging, phone calls and emails.”

Raffan said that the University of Waikato recently developed an emergency cell phone messaging system as a component of an evolving emergency preparedness system that includes a 24/7 security force and a good working relationship with local police agencies.

Perhaps the most imminent danger faced by emergency management personnel in Hamilton is dealing with natural disasters like the earthquake that rattled Christchurch, the country's second largest city, on Sept 3. Registering 7.0 on the Richter scale, the quake caused extensive damage.

“We have earthquake drills, fire drills and campus evacuation drills,” Raffan said. “In an earthquake, for example, we would be directed by the local police force.”

Raffan hopes that getting the campus community involved in the larger health and safety issues will encourage staff to take such a wellness-oriented approach into their home lives, as well.

“We need to look at how we measure wellness and how this approach fits into the strategic and operational values of our university,” Raffan said. “I'd like to incorporate these things into a benefits package for our staff and create some baseline data that would allow us to track the success of the program.”

Opportunities for staff include wellness weeks, preventative health screenings, vision and hearing screening, flu vaccination and fitness challenges, Raffan said.

“We need to think about how well our staff is, the pressures that are put on them as individuals, and the support we are giving them,” Raffan said. “People have lives outside the university, and you don't just come to work a flick a switch and turn that off.”

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photos by Ambre Alexander