Emergency Closing Procedures

School of Public Health Policy

Note: The decision to close SPH for employees and the decision to close SPH for classes are made independently of one another. The School may be closed for non-essential employees but classes may be held, or vice versa.

Note: A backup person is designated for each responsible party in these processes. That person will fill a role in the absence of the responsible party. When both parties are absent, decision making and notification responsibility will move up rather than down the chain.

Emergency Closings for Employees

Decision: The decision to close the School for non-essential employees is made by Medical Campus Administration (Provost; Vice President and Associate Vice President) in consultation with the Dean of SPH and other Medical Campus deans. The SPH Associate Dean for Administration & Finance serves as backup for the SPH Dean.

A list of essential SPH employees will be developed and maintained by the Associate Dean for Administration & Finance. This will specifically designate those employees who are essential when the School is closed for employees but classes are not canceled. The  Talbot reception desk must be covered during working hours when classes are in session.

Notification: Once informed of an emergency closing decision, the Dean or the Associate Dean will notify the SPH Manager of Operations or her backup, the Assistant to the Deans, who will then:

• contact the Director of Communication, the SPH web master, or her backup in order to put an employee closure message on the Insider and on the SPH home page;
• record an employee closure message on the main SPH telephone number; and
• send a broadcast email to SPH faculty (including part-time) and staff.

Since SPH closes for employees when, and only when, the Medical Campus closes, and since Medical Campus Administration contacts campus offices (e.g., Control Center) and  TV and radio stations about campus closings, there is no need for SPH to notify campus offices and the media for a separate SPH listing. Since employee closing notices will be posted in the media and distributed by web posting, phone message, and email, we will not maintain or activate an SPH phone tree.

Emergency Closings for Classes

Decision: The decision to cancel SPH classes is made by the Associate Dean for Education.

For more information about course cancellations, and when students will know if courses are canceled, please refer to the Student Insider.

Notification: Once a decision is made to cancel classes, the Associate Dean will notify both the Director of Student Services or her backup and the Manager of Operations or her backup.

The Director of Student Services will:

• Notify the TV and radio stations;
• Send a broadcast email message to the student listserv; and
• Notify the Educational Media Center

The Manager of Operations will:

• Contact the Director of Communications, the Web master, or her backup to put a class cancellation message on the Insider and on the SPH home page;
• Record a class cancellation message on the main SPH telephone number;
• Send a broadcast email to SPH faculty (including part-time) and staff; and
• Notify the relevant BUMC offices including:

Central Control
Security (A security guard will staff the  Talbot front desk from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekday evenings regardless of whether classes are held.)
Telecommunications HELP desk