Course helps TSU employees prepare for emergencies

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (TSU News Service) – Tennessee State University is making sure its faculty and staff are prepared to handle emergencies.

TSU employees participate in emergency preparedness course. (submitted photo)

More than 20 people attended a two-day course – Campus Emergencies Prevention, Response and Recovery – on the university’s campus Nov. 15-16.

The purpose of the course was to provide campus leaders with an understanding and ability to navigate difficult aspects of dealing with campus emergencies – both natural and human-caused events, including acts of violence.

“The expectations are for individuals who participated in this training to better enable university employees to aid the university in the event of an emergency,” said Dr. Curtis Johnson, TSU’s associate vice president for administration. “It’s also important that these persons spread the word about what they received here, and encourage others to get this training.”

The course consisted of small, problem-based, integrated group activities that required a coordinated, integrated approach to solve. Through tabletop scenarios, course participants observed a developing incident and responded in a manner consistent with currently established campus and jurisdictional emergency operations procedures.

TSU Police Captain Tony Blakely said the course was enlightening.

“One of the most important things as a captain over patrol that I got out of this training was a refresher,” Blakely said. “Time to time, we as professionals do need a refresher. The training was excellent, and I hope we have more of it.”

The course was led by representatives from the National Center for Biomedical Research and Training at Louisiana State University. The agency provides training to emergency responders throughout the United States and its territories.

For more information about NCBRT, visit https://www.ncbrt.lsu.edu.

Department of Media Relations

Tennessee State University
3500 John Merritt Boulevard
Nashville, Tennessee 37209
615.963.5331

About Tennessee State University

With more than 9,000 students, Tennessee State University is Nashville’s only public university, and is a comprehensive, urban, co-educational, land-grant university offering 38 undergraduate, 25 graduate and seven doctoral programs. TSU has earned a top 20 ranking for Historically Black Colleges and Universities according to U.S. News and World Report, and rated as one of the top universities in the country by Washington Monthly for social mobility, research and community service. Founded in 1912, Tennessee State University celebrated 100 years in Nashville during 2012. Visit the University online at tnstate.edu.