NIU Shooting ‘082009 Silver Anvil Award Winner – Crisis Communications – Government

Situation

• Shortly after 3 p.m. on February 14, 2008, a gunman burst on to the stage of a large lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on the audience of nearly 150 undergraduates

• Within three minutes, six people (including the gunman) were dead while 19 others were injured

• The crisis communications plan NIU enacted following the shooting received resounding praise for its efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency

Research

• Post 9/11, NIU President John Peters called for increased attention to campus emergency preparedness

• NIU Public Affairs team attended crisis communications workshops, participated in teleconference seminars, and read books and articles by crisis communications experts

• Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 had a large effect on NIU’s new crisis communications plan• NIU staff worked closely with counterparts at VT to learn new web

communication techniques• Public Affairs department head attended a national higher education

meeting at which Virginia Tech administrators shared lessons learned• Public Affairs staff participated in an exhaustive, line-by-line review of

the Virginia Tech Review Panel report

PlanningObjectives & Publics

Objectives

• Provide emergency alert information as quickly as possible to students, faculty, and staff – no time for meetings prior to first alert

• Keep all audiences (particularly students and parents) as widely informed as possible throughout crisis

• Use website to provide updates to all audiences – including hungry news media

• Treat news media as partners – they have communication skills necessary to reach primary audiences

• Maintain institutional credibility through maximum timely disclosure• Manage the message: Victims and their families are our first priority• Re-establish/Reinforce reputation as safe and caring campus

community

Publics

• Campus community (students, faculty, and staff), parents, and members of the media – Primary• Each of these publics wanted to be as up-to-date as possible

on the story

• The campus community needs to know what happened and whether or not they are safe, parents need to know if their children are safe, and media members need to know as much as possible to inform their publics

Fun Fact

• NIU’s crisis communications plan was tested twice before the February 14th incident:• Late August: downpour caused flooding that required total

campus evacuation on the day before the fall semester started

• December: racially-charged threat was found in a residence hall bathroom and on a website, causing a one-day campus closure

• Crisis communications plan was executed successfully in both instances

• These events brought to light the need for additional servers to be purchased so website could handle unusually large visitor spikes

Implementation/Execution

• First emergency alerts (web, email, voicemail, hotline) completed at 3:20, less than 15 minutes after the shooting (plan required only simple authorization from president, no meeting or discussion required prior to initial alerts

• Arranged and presided over six news conferences, the first at 5:30 p.m., less than two and a half hours after last shot was fired; 200-300 reporters and photographers were present at each

• Streamed all news conferences and subsequent events live on Internet

• Continued to manage media and messages throughout following year, culminating in one-year anniversary observance on February 14, 2009

• Website quickly became “information central,” with automatic repostings to Facebook

• Arranged and presided over six news conferences, the first at 5:30 p.m., less than two and a half hours after last shot was fired; 200-300 reporters and photographers were present at each

• Established a media center in Altgeld Hall (administration building); auditorium used for formal briefings fully equipped with multiple feed boxes and other technology for broadcast media; also opened up two large conference rooms near auditorium, enabled Wi-Fi access in each, and regularly supplied food and drinks for media

Implementation/Execution (continued)

• Facilitated dozens of individual interviews with president, police e and other spokespersons during first 48 hours; Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs also served as spokesperson; greatest attention on local and regional media who cover NIU regularly

• Worked closely with counterparts at Kishwaukee Hospital and with coroner on release of information about victims (did not release names of wounded, though many came forward and identified themselves to the media)

• Participated in hourly meetings of president’s crisis management group; led message development and spokesperson preparation

• Prepared talking points, speeches, letters, all-campus emails, etc. Originated use of “Forward, Together Forward,” motto (a line from the NIU fight song) as symbol of healing and recovery

• President positioned as “public face” of university; messages of sympathy, caring and determination developed

• Participated in planning of memorial service on February 24; more than 12,000 people attended

• Created memorial website with application that allowed visitors to leave messages of condolence and hope

Evaluation and Results

One year after the shooting, NIU’s crisis communications plan received copious amounts of praise:•The U.S. Department of Homeland Security commissioned a report on the NIU incident in which crisis communications is likewise held up as exemplary.•The Chicago Tribune called NIU’s response “textbook crisis management,” and commended NIU for its “transparency and candor.”•NBC Nightly News with Charles Gibson named NIU its “Person of the Week” for its handling of the crisis and the resolve of its campus community to not let an act of violence define the university.

Evaluation and Results

• Praise from those outside of the university played an large role in restoring the university’s reputation as a safe and caring place, perhaps even more important though was the reaction from the campus community itself. More than 300 students were directly affected by the shooting in various ways, but only 19 of those students ended up leaving the university and applications from prospective students also continued to rise in the year following the shooting

My Evaluation

• NIU knew that keeping all audiences informed as much as possible throughout the crisis was extremely important. • While this was stated as an objective, I believe it should’ve been

the overarching goal of NIU’s crisis communications plan, especially when a tragedy such as this occurs.

• I believe every one of the objectives stated were necessary to achieve the would-be goal of keeping NIU’s audiences informed • None of these objectives are SMART as they all lack the

measurable and time-locked aspects of the SMART formula.• Despite these shortcomings, I believe that in this instance the

SMART formula does not appropriately take in to account the situation

My Evaluation

• NIU provided outcome objectives, which normally aim to achieve a change in its public’s awareness, attitudes or actions; but after a tragedy that shook the community, NIU was hoping instead for its public’s awareness, attitudes and actions to return to the way they were from before the shooting

• Keeping the campus community and parents informed could not have been accomplished without the assistance of the news media, which was equally interested in keeping everyone informed • Media center set up on campus as well as the efforts of campus

police to make room for satellite trucks allowed the media to stay in close contact with the NIU Public Affairs team and keep the nation informed

Conclusion

• NIU deserved every award it received• The actions the university took both leading up to the shooting

and after the shooting showed the university cared more about those affected by the shooting than the reputation of the university

• The objectives NIU came up with when devising its crisis communications plan may have not met the SMART requirements, but they were the ideal for the situation that NIU found itself in, which in my opinion, this is the reason why the campaign won the awards it did, because it didn’t allow itself to be handcuffed by the traditional rules and flourished because of it