Case Study 1 Denise A. Connerty Assistant Vice President International Affairs Temple University

March 11, 2011  You have a campus in Tokyo, Japan with 2000 students enrolled including 69 study abroad students. Approximately 8 weeks into the 13-week semester, a massive 9.03 earthquake strikes 227 miles from Tokyo. The earthquake is followed by a horrific tsunami. The tsunami is followed by a nuclear reactor crisis. What do you do? 2

The Great East Japan Earthquake  9.03 magnitude, epicenter off coast of Sendai  Tsunami waves that reached height 60+ feet causing massive destruction  Several nuclear accidents, including Level 7 nuclear meltdowns at three Fukushima reactors  Approximately 16,000 deaths, 3,000 missing  No structural damage or loss of life in Tokyo 3

Crisis Management  Immediate Response/Response Team  Communications – internal and external  Bringing Students Home  Outcome  Lessons Learned 4

Our Immediate Response  Assess situation  Account for all students, staff and faculty (our biggest challenge)  Check for structural soundness/damage  Crisis management  Develop a communications plan 5

Assembling a Response Team  An intercontinental response team:  President’s Office (Philadelphia)  Dean of TUJ (Tokyo)  Provost and his senior staff (Philadelphia)  Risk Management (Philadelphia)  International Affairs (Philadelphia)  Student Affairs (Philadelphia)  Communications (Philadelphia and Tokyo)  University Counsel (Philadelphia) 6

 24/7 phone duty  Talking points for staff dealing with stressed, frightened callers  Frequent communications to students, their parents and study abroad advisers  Frequently update official statements and updates at university’s home page  Created special address for questions: Communication: students and parents 7

 Many inquiries daily from national and local media  Constant requests to speak with students and their families, both here and in Japan  Many requests arriving through inappropriate channels  Setting up interviews with TUJ staff (but making sure they don’t feel overburdened, uncomfortable)  How many students? How many students? How many students?  All questions and requests referred to university communications Communications: the media 8

 March 13: U.S. State Department issued Travel Alert  Very fluid; not a single event  Media headlines increasingly sensational  Nuclear anxiety (and widely varying perceptions)  “Evacuation?” To bring, or not bring, students home 9

 U.S. State Department  U.S. Embassy in Tokyo  International SOS  TUJ faculty and staff  Japanese news sources (NHK, Japan Times)  Other governments (some issued warnings advising their citizens to depart several days before U.S. did) Information Resources 10

 Daily communiqués to students and parents, copying advisers. Message to students: We understood if they felt need to depart Japan, and we would do whatever we could to help them complete semester.  Many students started returning home on their own.  Wednesday night call ended with the decision to move students to Osaka. Denise went to bed at 12:30 a.m. Last thing she did: Check U.S. State Department website and International SOS…but no change. 11

March, 17 2 a.m. 12

 Factors:  U.S. State Department issued Travel Warning advising US citizens to depart Tokyo  Stress on staff in Japan  Uncertainty and fluid nature of the crisis  Helpful: There were only four more weeks of classes  Orchestrating the flights (available for all students) Decision to bring study abroad students home 13

 Transportation arranged  Plan created to assist study abroad students complete coursework remotely from home or on Temple’s main campus in Philadelphia.  Students offered free housing in Temple dorms.  All TUJ faculty developed options for students to complete coursework from home.  Main campus Japanese language faculty and our on-line learning staff worked with Tokyo Japanese language faculty.  The semester resumed in Japan on April 4th. Outcome 14

 Calm, knowledgeable leadership  Identifying one individual to be the main point person at both ends of the crisis  Excellent and skilled communications people – during the height of the crisis, we had calls from local and national media a day  An overactive imagination -- it’s hard to anticipate every conceivable scenario, and then think through in advance how various challenges and solutions will play out, but to the degree that it’s possible…..  Having some sense of the technologies available to have faculty teach virtually. Lessons Learned, or the Importance of: 15

 Keeping the response team as small and manageable as possible  Taking care of and protecting the front line response team  If at all possible, having someone available on both sides of the pond, to provide information and answer questions during regular business hours.  Handing the situation off to other teams as needed as soon as it’s reasonable to do so, i.e., undergraduate studies, housing, student affairs, etc.  If you’re bringing students home, having a plan and team ready to address a range of issues and challenges:  Undergraduate studies, on-line learning, student affairs, student life, residential life, counseling services 16

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