Well, good afternoon colleagues from across the U.S. and Canada. Welcome to this nationwide U.S.-Canada Together, Crisis Communications and the Campus Response. In preparing for this conversation, I came across a pretty simple frame that sums up crisis communications thusly. Crisis communications is the dialogue between the organization and the public prior to, during, and after a negative occurrence. It's the use of the word dialogue that really resonates with me, meaning it's more than releasing a statement. I'm Chase Moore, Director of District Relations at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in Washington, D.C. It is such a pleasure to be with you all this afternoon, and what a privilege it is to be here this afternoon with three exceptional leaders in the comm space. Not only are they exceptional in the industry, but they are exceptional volunteers for CASE, and I cannot wait to jump into this conversation with you. I'm going to ask them in just a second to share not only their names and where they serve, but I've also asked them to share a crisis comms incident that really informs how they and their teams approach crisis communications in their day-to-day. And let's start in ascending order with District 7. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Myla Edmond. I am the Assistant Vice President of Communications and Marketing at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and to answer the question about an incident that shaped me, I would have to say it was at my previous role. We actually lost a student, and the reason why that shaped me, obviously, is the loss of life, but I also had to speak with her parents, and so when you're in that space, it certainly reminded me of the impact of the work that I'm doing, and certainly I had a business responsibility, but in that situation, I just had to be human, and I never forgot that, and I don't think that I will. Carrie. Hi, everyone. I am Carrie Phillips. I serve as the Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I've been in that role for almost two years, and as I think about that moment that really galvanizes my response to crisis, it actually happened this spring. We had a tornado that came through our town. While the university itself was not impacted in any significant way, our people were, and so seeing our students whose homes may have been impacted, pets, seeing members of my team that grocery stores were out of food, it took them hours to get home, that really impacted me in thinking about how we make sure that we're doing everything we can from a crisis perspective to communicate in that kind of ongoing manner, that sometimes the crisis isn't over in five minutes or five hours, but it goes on for days and sometimes weeks, and so that I think will, to Myla's point, stay with me for a really long time. Thanks. Emily. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. I am Emily Spitalia. I'm currently the Chief Marketing Officer for the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. I've been at Temple a little over eight years. I spent seven years in the Central Marketing and Communications team and moved over to the medical school a year or so ago. I think that it's interesting because I think that probably the crisis that, or crises that have affected me the most, are similar to the ones already mentioned. We, in the last couple of years, have lost a student and one of our campus police officers to gun violence, and those were probably the crises that affected me the most personally, definitely, but I actually would, to be honest, say that the crisis that affected me the most professionally or helped me to sharpen my crisis communication skills the most had to do with an incident of the falsification of data related to the U.S. News and World Report rankings. I say that because that crisis required a much, to be honest, a much lengthier effort, a much more complicated effort, and the ramifications of something like that on reputation can be devastating and can take a long time to overcome, and it's something that, not that all crises don't, but it's something that significantly changed the way that we do things and the way that we work. So when I think about crises, I think about all these things, but that definitely stands out in my professional mind. Thank you. Also, thank you to the three of you. I cannot express how grateful I am and Case is for the gift of your wisdom and your time this afternoon. Participants, if you have burning questions, please feel free to type those into the Q&A. My colleague Jacob will be synthesizing those, and if we don't get to that question or that theme in today's conversation, we'll do our best in post-conversation to address and share some things out. Speaking of sharing out, whenever you revisit this event today, not only will the recording be posted on this digital event, but you'll have access to two special collections within the Case Library. The first collection is around crisis communications, best practice, some of the fundamentals that can aid you and your campus team if you're on this journey to creating a best-in-class crisis comm strategy. The second resource is more or less hot off the press, and it relates to this geopolitical time that we all find ourselves in, our institutions impacted by societal conversations. There are some really well-tested use of language and examples of statements that your campus leaders might find useful. So after this session ends, go in and please interact with those two resources. They are available to you and your institution by way of your membership with Case. So as somebody who likes to go into any endeavor, with the end in mind, I want to start this conversation that way. I'd like for us to build sort of a common frame or understanding of what high preparedness looks like before an institution, before crisis hit. So I'm going to ask us to flip into a bit of a thought exercise, and Milo, I'm going to come to you first. Imagine, if you will, that you have been retained as a consultant to visit with a campus to do an assessment of their free crisis communication strategy. What would you be looking for? What would you want to see in order to give them a grade of an A-plus, that they're really prepared should crisis strike their campus? Yeah, I think that's a really good question. When I think about preparedness, you're really trying to alleviate any barrier or essentially any guesswork out of how to manage a sudden or significant event or circumstance. And the mantra I tell myself is stick to the facts and stick to the plan. So the first thing I would want to see is the plan itself. And that plan should include the members of that core crisis communications team or emergency operations team. We love acronyms in higher eds. Whatever the acronym is, your emergency operations team, that it should include their titles and contact information and cell phone numbers. That plan should also include any additional groups or branches out of that core team that are relevant to crisis. So your secondary crisis team, general information disseminators, and their contact information as well. I would want to see a checklist of tasks. Again, you're trying to alleviate guesswork so that when the crisis happens, you're not trying to figure out what to do. You have a plan in place. So that checklist of tasks, the audiences, your communication mediums, and certainly some sample messages so that you're not trying to create that on the fly. Now obviously with each crisis, there may be some specific nuances, but if you have some sample messages that you can pull from, I think that's helpful. The other thing in addition to the plan itself is I want to know how accessible it is. If it's just available electronically and your servers are down, how are people going to assess your plan? I'd also like to know when it was last updated because anything before 2020 needs to be re-evaluated. And certainly I'd want to speak to members of that core team and the community to learn if you conduct debriefs after crises, if you do tabletop exercises, how often you communicate outside of a crisis, and if there's any regular emergency messaging or testing that you take that you do on a regular basis just to make sure that things are functioning the way that they should. And if you have turnover, your new folks know how to access those messages. Great points. Emily, Carrie, anything you'd like to add? I have a couple of things and I think you know my best friend has an emergency management degree and does this kind of emergency response work. And one of the things that she always says and I'll never forget is you shouldn't be trading business cards at the time of a crisis. And so I think it speaks to that familiarity of knowing what the plan is and having regular conversation with that. I think one of the things that sometimes gets forgotten about in a crisis, at least in the planning stage, is that these things cross divisional lines. So it's really easy to sit down and look and think, okay, well, if this happens, this is going to be the step or if X happens, Y will be the response. But then we sometimes forget, well, who's going to, you know, who on each of these divisional teams has to be approving and has to be signing off on things? Who is the one that, you know, has to call the senior leader on campus, the chancellor, the president, and have that conversation? I don't always think we think all the way up each of these kinds of crisis lines as we're doing our planning. And I think the other piece that's really important in terms of preparedness is, you know, we as communicators probably have that piece relatively figured out or at least have starting points on it. Have we looped in our advancement colleagues and our student affairs colleagues? Because I think those are both areas that their phones are going to ring with concerned parents, concerned alumni, wanting to know what's happening and how do we make sure that those folks are part of the conversation. And so they have an awareness, but yet they also know what's appropriate to share out and what probably needs to stay within that circle of trust. These two quick things I just want to add as a, in this scenario, as a consultant coming in and looking at, you know, how, how a school or an organization is doing. The two things that I, that I would also be looking at is if leadership is owning this work, if they are, you know, taking the lead and actually owning it. I think that's, that's obviously critically important. And then there's a difference between crisis management and crisis communications. So the planning isn't just developing a crisis communications plan. It's developing a crisis management plan as well. So just quickly, those two things would be, you know, there's more that you could say about both of them, but that I would be looking for. Sure. Let me pull that thread just a little bit more. Whenever you say leadership is sort of owning and participating, is that at the cabinet level? Is that divisional for MarCom? Yes. I mean, at the cabinet level, I mean, if possible, the president. Gotcha. All right. So there's usually a couple of pro tips in there. If you, if you sort of poke at the right question, I am curious, are there any patterns that you all have seen sort of emerge over the years in crisis that really gets your Spidey sense going that I need to lean into this because it's exhibiting these sorts of traits, then this may have some legs that I need to pay attention to. I think things that impact a lot of various stakeholders is a, is one of those things that I really start to pay attention to, whether that may be some sort of peace with the city, or it's some sort of issue that differing folks have different opinions on. I think it's really, if there are a lot of people that have an interest in a, in a situation or a conversation that immediately tells me that it may have some staying power and something to kind of be tuned into. I think too, you just know, you know, you have to think about the complexities, the nuances of your own organization and, and the dynamics, right? So there are certain things that certain issues or certain topics or certain things that can happen that you will know, that might get certain groups of folks, or, you know, even individuals, depending on, you know, there are members of faculty members of alumni, you know, we tend to have, I guess, all of us tend to have certain vocal people that we know of, and there are certain issues that get them to start talking and being louder. So you have to think, you have to really take a minute, and that should all be part of your planning to think about those, those things that typically come up and create the sort of groundswell that, that often gets us or leads to a crisis. Yeah, I guess the only thing I would add is, we're seeing more and more crises happening on campuses that have become part of national news. And I think in years past, it would happen at your campus, and you manage that. And now it happens on campus. And all of us, our community is pretty tight knit. So we're all watching this unfold. And oftentimes, we know who the crisis communicator is, who the crisis communications team members consist of. What that does is, again, gives it that more human element to it. And so you're not just looking at somebody releasing a statement, you're looking at somebody who you understand exactly where they're coming from, and you have a little bit more compassion. And I think that gives us room to, again, show that human side, while you're still trying to make sure you're meeting those objectives of getting out, you know, accurate information as quickly as possible. Some of these crises we've seen, we've actually witnessed people emoting, where I think before, we weren't giving room for that. And I think now we're more open to it. Gotcha. So before we sort of go in a bit deeper, one more sort of frame setting. When it comes to crisis communications, and regardless of whether it's a weather incident, or some tragedy, or scandal, when you think about the goals for your comms team, and the institution during crisis communications, what are some of those goals? I would start with making sure, you know, safety and the health of the community is number one. But accurate information, information goes really quickly. And people have scanners, and people are reporting things that they thought they saw, thought they heard. And then social media has taken that and just made it really difficult for sometimes us to even get ahead of certain things. Especially as we're trying to make sure we're getting the facts before we say anything. And so I think one of the goals after, you know, making sure health and safety of the campus is first, is the information is accurate. We want to make sure that people have nowhere to go to get updates. So not just saying we're going to send this one thing out, but as new information is made available, here's where you go to find that new information. And then ensuring that those who need to be informed, as Kerri was talking about, they have been properly informed. And if decisions have to be made, they have everything that they need to make a really solid and well thought out decision. I find myself as well thinking about, you know, when we talk about our brand and regular communications on a normal day, I find myself kind of going back to the same thing of are we meeting those brand objectives of who we say we are? Are those still evident as through lines in our crisis communication? So, you know, at UA Little Rock, we talk about one of our brand goals is really this unparalleled student support. And so is that evident of that we're supporting students and how we're talking about the crisis at hand, if that's applicable. And so I think that's an important piece. I also find myself thinking about the team that we're leading, because in crisis, they're the ones that are seeing the social media posts that are sometimes harsh. They're the ones that are reading the email responses back that are harsh. And so I think about their mental health and making sure that they're okay, having to be in that official capacity, when others might have the opportunity to more grieve or to react to a situation. Emily, anything to follow up on on that particular thread. I think that was pretty comprehensive. I think, you know, again, the the related to the crisis itself. You know, we want to a goal is always to have, you know, leadership and whoever needs to be a part of it to come together and prioritize it and and sometimes you need things, you know, everyone to drop everything and and do that and sort of listen and follow the plan. So that's definitely a goal. And then I think you know you you want to get through a crisis as quickly as you can being as accurate and informative and communicating effectively, but you want it, you want it to be over. And so, you know, I think that's that's that's normal right like that's the that's the that's the ultimate goal. So, you know, the things that we've said so far following having those plans following those plans having leadership work with you is only going to get get to through it quick, more quickly and more effectively. Thanks. So Carrie I'm going to come to you for for this particular question. So we've established a bit of agreement around what it looks like to maybe be prepared and with some of our participants may be still working towards really prepared. And I'm wondering, what are some of the decisions that campus leaders need to make in order to create this condition that you can lay the foundation of preparedness and a really strong crisis community crisis communication strategy. I think a couple of decisions are, who are the people that are going to be at the table. I think that's probably the biggest decision that that leadership team has to make of who's the group that's charged with putting that that plan together. You know, at UA Little Rock, Chancellor comes to our planning meetings to be part of that conversation, because she says it's that important to be there but there's a group of about 15 to 20 of us and that ebbs and flows and so I think it's, I think that's a big decision is who all needs to be kind of in the room for that. And then I think it, the other major decision that has to really be factored in is how do we approach that you know you can approach that from an incident perspective and so you plan for these various incidents you can approach that from a role perspective, where you look through what are the roles and I think it's just really building what's going to work best for your institution and the culture at which you find yourself. But I think the biggest piece is to start that work and start having those conversations and that dialogue of just what does this look like for us and how do we, how do we get there. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you're when you're when you're planning you're you're trying to anticipate you're trying to create action plans and what you're going to do in different scenarios and you try to cover all of the bases. We all know that there's always going to be something that we're not going to expect. That's the nature of a crisis. That's why we're having this conversation. But if you can at least have those baselines and you can and you can get your team and the, the, your crisis management team that you develop and leadership to make decisions about what will happen in different scenarios, at least the things that you know, or that you can anticipate, then that's your playbook, you know, that's what you can use whenever something happens and then knowing that there's going to be some kind of curveball along the way, but it will you will at least be able to take care of some of the things that you've already decided are going to you know your how you're going to handle certain things. And then it's a little bit easier to when you have to pivot to be able to make those decisions because you have a level of confidence because you've had that conversation or you've done it before, and you have it sort of documented and everybody is working from the same playbook. I would just add that you want to be as granular as who is approving the messages, because sometimes when emotions are high people are like well I didn't get to see it. Well, here's the plan and we're sticking to this plan. Because the last thing you want to do is improvise in a situation like this. So as granular as who's approving messages before they go out. And I think Emily mentioned this to who are we communicating to. We always think of communicating to the greater community but who do we need to come up to also. Marla you had mentioned in that that consulting role, something that in my previous role I found to be immensely helpful and that was tabletop exercise. Can you explain what a good tabletop exercises and what it's supposed to accomplish. You know there's lots of great examples of tabletop exercises, and sometimes, you know, it's really getting you outside of what you've seen before but there has to be a balance because if we feel like it's so extraordinary then people have gotten lost. And just that example and then they can't even come along the ride with you. You want to make sure that it's something that will be disruptive. You know, don't come up with like a softball example that's, that's not going to be helpful. You want to make sure it's impacting the entire community. So nothing that's just geared towards a student life, it has to be cross divisional impact. It has to be something that involves technology, some technology challenge of some sort, because that's something we don't always think about. And certainly in California, when we talk earthquake, we're like, okay, it's a big one and nobody's up because sometimes the answer is well we'll just use our other server. So it has to be something that challenges everyone in the room so I think if you have something that is cross divisional impact impacts the community at large as well, but also create some technology changes, I would say those are some, some pretty good tabletop examples. Anybody else. You're muted. I just was gonna say I think you did a really great job there. Well, Carrie I'm coming back to you. Anyway, because this is something that you and I have actually talked about. So, crisis has happened that fighter flight has started kicking in. What are some of the tools in your toolkit that you have either developed or maybe even in the process of developing as technology changes that really help you and your team, maintain objectivity. Keep emotion and anxiety, low or low, or what are what are some of those things that that you've developed. So one of the things that we did at UA Little Rock and it actually came about as a response to the tornado that I spoke about early in the conversation was we went through and rated crises that we thought we would be most likely to anticipate. Some of those, you know, are certainly weather related. Some of those are you know some sort of community issue we're in the capital city and so sometimes there are moments of overlap there, but also closure, we're in Arkansas, we don't do well with weather, especially But then also those things that you never want to have to think about but there's an active shooter or there's some sort of scenario in that space. And so we went through and identified what those were defined what that crisis looks like. Because I think sometimes we forget or we may not think of what something is as a particular crisis and then really looked at who needed to approve it, who had to sign off in certain instances versus what instances where we just telling somebody before we sent a message out making sure that people knew what was happening. And then we also defined what platforms, we would communicate that message on we call this our matrix. And so it's a pretty robust document and over the course of we meet about once every you know three to four weeks and are continuously refining this and I think that really helps with emotion. And I have kind of two examples we had an incident on campus at the beginning of the fall, and I was really proud that everybody kind of in that moment when that my phone ring at 2am. I pulled the document up and the other person on the phone call had the document up and we were going through kind of looking at our checklist. And then I had a call from someone else on campus that said hey wanted to let you know about this scenario based on the matrix here's how we're responding let me know if you disagree. So it really kind of provides that centering document, so it helps to take that emotion out so that you have something that you've all agreed to in a calm moment. I will say the important part of that is then assessing it after the fact, because, you know, there may be something that we did what the plan said but the plan didn't quite work the way we intended or the way we wanted in the moment stick to the plan, but then afterwards that's the beauty it's a plan you can always change it. Excellent. I would just add, I think one of the things that is is is challenging is when there is an extremely emotional crisis and like when you lose a student, or you lose a officer to gun violence and sometimes the emotion isn't is what is at the forefront and it's not going to, it's not going to go away and it and it sometimes almost paralyzes people when it's that at that level. So, some of the things so you have to do a couple of things and you have to, you know, for your own I think Carrie you mentioned before how the marketing communications teams are on the front lines of the, of the response right from the from our constituents and from everyone else you know on the planet who wants to weigh in about what is going on at your university, and that and the crisis itself that can be so devastating and upsetting, and all of that is is, you know, a double impact and. And I think every day you have to work with your team and you have to, you know, sort of take a step back and take a deep breath and and and reiterate, you know what, what they need to do and what you are doing and why you are doing it but this goes back I think to, but it's not all about. And I'm probably going to say this several times on this. This it's not all about crisis communication, it's about crisis management, and you need leadership to be on board and to be involved and when it's something that emotional that's even much more important, because you need the support of leadership at every level. And most crises there's issues all the time that a smaller group of people and the marketing communications team can can handle they're happening every day for our teams. But when you're in a full on crisis. That's all hands on deck, and everybody has a piece of it everybody across the campus and everyone has to be participating in some way and and aware, and that that I, I think because I've seen the others when that doesn't happen, how much it can create, making the emotional part of it, even worse. Yeah, and I think we play a very influential role in this because most of the time, if we're calm. We can impact calm and other spaces, sometimes even more than some of our other leaders because they expect your comms person to be calm to be that source. I know it's not to say that we don't have emotion, but I think a lot of us have been doing this for so long that we know that we're going to have our moment. Once we deal with whatever's immediately in front of us, but I do think that we have that that impact So that's, that's really interesting I want to chase that a little bit further, no pun intended. So, what you're describing sounds a great deal like compartmentalizing in the moment. How, how have you helped your team. Think about and develop that personal facility to take themselves sort of out of the moment, or at least the, the energy of it to perform and do what's necessary. Well, I think it comes with experiencing it. First time trial by fire. Yeah, they might not happen and there's a difference between you talking about these things and then they actually happen. So you can try to prepare people as much as you can, but I think modeling in this case is really important. And then having that plan and having people focus on what it means sometimes it's as simple as saying words on a page and saying this is what we have to do. Sometimes that will do enough to separate them from how they're feeling, to get them to action. And again, give people space. Once their task has been completed or once we're done with our initial meeting. If someone needs to have a moment you give them that. Really, the other thing you know I'm a, I tend to be a really collaborative leader. I love a collaborative approach, but when we get into crisis that fades away very quickly that somebody has got to be able to quickly make the right calls. And so I think team seeing that shift. I think is also in a way helps to kind of model and show that in certain scenarios you've got to be able to lead very differently. Because of what's at hand like we don't have time to sit around the table and talk about what's the best approach to manage this in a long term environment like that time in the crisis has passed. Yeah. All right, Emily I'm coming to you. So you're about to be in the hot seat. So, crisis has happened. The socials are blowing up with vids and all the comment. It's going viral in real time. What does it look like to get your campus colleagues on the same page with a narrative, who is in your huddle. To begin with. How do you sort of think about that, that fear expand expanding across campus. And then I want all three of you to comment on that and then the second piece of that is weave in for us, sort of how you think about managing inbound and outbound messaging at the same time. So, I think you you you spoke. We've mentioned it several times but you've you spoke in the beginning about your kind of the definition of the of a crisis and one of the things that you said was the dialogue prior to and that's kind of been the theme today So, it's all about having these conversations when there isn't a crisis. It's about doing this every single and thinking about this every single day, the marketing and communications and the crisis comes people are doing that. But it is also trying to get the rest of the, you know, the folks that you identify as your as your crisis management team. We talked about you know having that that team identified and the leadership, and that that is a consistent messaging and educating You know, when you're talking about what you do as a marketer and as a communicator for higher education or your organization in general. This needs to be a part of it. This is this is just as important as your, your enrollment marketing strategies, because it can affect that so much. Sure. So, so, you know, obviously in your huddle. Also, if you're at part of a larger institution like I am part of a larger institution and so that can make it more challenging because, you know, the opportunity for things to go off the rails can be much more apparent. It's harder to sort of control the message in the narrative, but at the same time, it can be helpful if you have this playbook if you have people on the same page. If you're having the conversations prior to because you do have a much larger network of communications professionals. So, you know, we have, we have a group that we call chief communicators which are the communications leaders at all of our schools and colleges and the conversation about their absolutely 100% brought in when there's a crisis and there is there are conversations about how the central team and leadership is going to handle that where we are in the process, and this is what you need to do or not to do for the foreseeable future, and then consistently bringing them in to help with, you know, getting the message out there or or monitoring you know some of it is just knowing what's coming at us and we can't, we can't monitor everything. So when you have, you know, several hundred alums and you have many many schools and you're in a big city, you need more people than your core staff to be looking at the landscape in a crisis. So those are the I mean there's, then you kind of go out from there but those that's kind of the first step and kind of core group that aside from that you know you're already planned out crisis team that you've identified. But, you know, we have colleagues and then obviously colleagues you know even outside like all of you when you're in a real, you know, when we're marketing comes people when we're in a crisis we lean on our colleagues, you know, even not at the same institution, you know, like, have you ever gone through this before, and best practices are going to win the day. I would only add to that is, you know, when you're communicating with the community, let them know this is where you're going to find the most up-to-date information, and making sure that that's where you update first. It's not to say that you won't update in other spaces, but if you put the expectation out there that this is where you'll find the most up-to-date information, I think that's helpful. I think it's also helpful to let people know there's a lot of erroneous information out there. Just tell them. I think people can't handle news, they just need to know. So you can just tell them there's a lot of, you know, information that's not accurate. This is where you go to get the most up-to-date. And then lean on your colleagues, as Emily was saying. We have a communicators network that sounds very similar to what she was mentioning with her chief communicators. Get them to help you, because it is often too much. You're in the room trying to find out the latest, and you're also trying to send messages out. So you're going to need help. And so letting them know, this is what's happening, I need you to communicate that to your networks, because it has to be a team effort. It's too much for one person or even one unit to manage. Kerria, who's in your huddle? I think about our, I go back a little bit to our student affairs and our advancement colleagues. You know, those are the people who a friend of so-and-so is going to pick up the phone and call and say, hey, I heard about such-and-such, or you're going to get a concerned parent. And I think that's where there's the biggest impact, potentially, for somebody who felt, because those folks have relationships with all of these people that they regularly interact with. And so I think it's really important that we have those, our advancement and our student affairs colleagues in the conversations with us, so that they know what things are really important to maybe not share, because sometimes we don't need to share everything. I think it's really important for them to know, kind of, what is the challenge, what are the pieces that we need help with? Because those are the folks that have that relationship, and they're going to be the ones that are going to have to be on the front line of managing that when their phone rings and their, like, those folks aren't calling me, those folks are calling those offices. And so having them part of that conversation of what's happening, I think, helps position them to be able to stay, kind of, focused on what we can and can't talk about. I don't want to chase this rabbit too far, but I remember distinctly a scenario where the campus that I was serving was dealing with some pretty egregious misinformation around a situation. How do you think about answering some of that misinformation, or containing misinformation? Well, some of it depends on what the misinformation is. I think there are some scenarios where you can directly say, this has been out there, here's the truth. Or in some scenarios, you just say, here's the truth, and you don't even address the misinformation. So I think it's dependent on what it is, how sensitive it is, and, you know, how pervasive it is. Sure. I think the other piece, though, is going back, Myla, to your point about, here's where we're going to give you the latest information, here's where you can expect that. And so if you do that consistently over time, in terms of what people know and learn to expect from you, I think people will learn to trust you as the source, and not trust what Aunt So-and-so heard at the grocery store line. I was just going to say that, unfortunately, when crises get out of control, and get, you know, for instance, to social media, that's usually where most of the misinformation is. And it's really hard to control it once that happens. I mean, just honestly, it's really hard to control it. And sometimes you just have to wait it out. Luckily, there's so much chatter on social media. You know, in some cases, it can, you know, kind of dissipate a little bit quickly, but there's not a whole lot you can do after that happens, which is why you go back to, you know, making good decisions in the first place, and being at the table when those decisions are made, and having your playbook. And then, you know, I think, you know, Myla has said a couple of times, like, you know, sticking to the facts, and communicating information that people really need, and really effective communication, not just messaging for the sake of messaging. So you know, that kind of messaging, and making sure your core communications group is knowledgeable, and giving them tools to be able to manage up. And because sometimes, you know, our colleagues are in a situation where their leader wants to talk about something. And you know, and there are lots of situations when that is not going to be helpful. So we can help them to manage that situation. And sometimes it's a matter of central, you know, the university central team said, we can't talk about this, you know, like, just giving them an opportunity, because that, that becomes an issue for them, right? So they're, then they're dealing with their own little issue, because they need to figure out how to keep people from talking or to net or to manage the narrative within their own part of the of the institution. So part of it is giving our colleagues the tools to be able to navigate the communication in and out and giving them talking points, giving them what they can say, giving them what they should say, like providing that to them has has mitigated a lot of this that we have found. Thank you. That's really useful. All right, Myla, here's one for you, because you and I had a really brief exchange on LinkedIn. What happens when that reporter gets to campus, looking for that person who really wants their 15 minutes of fame? What does it look like if you're really lucky in that scenario? And then in reality, what does it look like? Because nobody's actually very lucky in that scenario? Yes, you know, people always want to sensationalize what's happening. And it depends, again, on the relationship that we have with with that particular news outlet, and sometimes even that particular reporter. They need something. And so I always try to provide some information to them, even if they're trying to find something more sensational than what's happening, just providing them with here's what we know factually. And here's where I'm going to update you so so that you're not just sending them away. I think this was mentioned earlier, I think Emily said something to this effect, depending on what the crisis is, if they do find that person that ends up being a meme of some sort. Sometimes there's so much going on that it doesn't really get as much play as, you know, you're envisioning. I think we're always making worst case scenario. And so sometimes that happens and you have to let it play out. But I would I would try to give them some information rather than just sending them away. The other thing is, you're competing with a lot of other messages. And so just making sure that your mechanism, sending out the facts and sticking to that wins out over that sensationalized story or quote, or, you know, whatever you get from that person that's looking for their 15 minutes of fame. Excellent. So I want to for the sake of time, because we're now about 13 minutes, and this question is for anyone. So during a crisis, there is just natural tension between you, the comms professional and media, and sometimes even your constituents. Generally speaking, how do you approach navigating transparency, and the appropriate release of information and somebody in one of their comments sort of hit on this. Who makes that distinction at your campus of what sort of considered appropriate? That must have been a tough one. Wow. Well, it depends. You know, I think sometimes there are situations where everyone is deferring to comps. And they're like, you handle this. And sometimes where your president may want to handle it. It depends on the scenario. And in those moments, you know, you have to trust that you have given, you know, if somebody decides they want to take lead on it, you have given them enough training, you've had enough conversation that they're going to make you proud. Because it's it's not time for that going back and forth in that debate, especially if it is the president, like what you can't debate the president in that moment. So I do think it depends. It really does. I mean, I think it's hard to know. Sometimes the president just wants to take lead and sometimes they say you all take it. I think as we think about the pandemic, and kind of the downplay that like with the pandemic, I think we as comms and professionals, we're really focused on trying to share every piece of material to every audience that we knew, trying to make sure that we were, you know, keeping our students, our parents, all of those folks informed. And I think we're seeing a little bit of the repercussion of that. Because now it's the pendulum definitely swung that direction. And so now there's kind of this expectation in any other crisis that every single piece of detail is shared. And sometimes that's not always the case. And that can't be the case. But that's become the expectation. So we as a profession, I think, are trying to figure out how do you change that what's become a habit, honestly, for the last couple of years of how we step that back a little bit. One thing that I would say that I think that's related to this question is, and it's kind of related to what we were all, you know, we're all dealing with an international crisis of sorts right now, right with what is happening in the Middle East, and, and, you know, every day, it's a part of my conversations every day, right now. And I think, again, this is where the crisis management piece and the crisis communications piece has to come together. Because it's, it's, this is a situation and I'm sure most of the people listening are dealing with the same thing in that there's a lot of conversations about messaging, there's a lot of conversations about what do we say, and who who says it, and a lot of people are saying things and, and we are seeing that in many, many issues and crises, you're never going to say the right thing. That's that's one of the major problems with all of this that we're talking about. So I think what what is happening, you know, for me and my space, and is probably happening for a lot of us is that it's, it's pretty clear that communications, communications can't solve the problem. And that this is where that goes back to, you have to think about these scenarios and leadership and your colleagues have to think about the how it impacts your institution, how it impacts your students, how it impacts your alums, how it impacts all of your stakeholders, and think about the things that you can do that don't, that aren't aren't an email. You know, that are how can you help people navigate situations like this, one on one day to day in the classroom, you know, in their conversations? How can it's it's about it's more about support. And that, that is also crisis communications, that is also crisis management. It's not just about what we put on the website, and what we've put in an email. That's really just one very small sliver of it. And I think where people are struggling, especially right now with the situation that's happening is that leadership has a tendency to say, what should I do? Should I send a message or I want to send a message? And what should I say? And there's not an easy answer, not even for us who do it and think about it 24 seven. So, you know, again, going back to the the exercises and the tabling and the preparedness and you know, you can't necessarily predict this scenario, but you have to think about what what you can do to support your constituents and your audiences and your groups every day, but then boots on the ground during a crisis. Yeah, I would add that in this situation, we do have a little bit more time to be thoughtful. And so what I would suggest is getting leadership to see what is our intent here. And if you're trying to write something because you're feeling pressured to write something, that's not really a good intention for sitting down to write a statement. I think you have to go back to what is our core and what is it that we are supposed to be doing as a higher ed institution. And you know, in that particular situation, I just think we are supposed to be extending beyond words. You know, we are supposed to be instructing our students to think critically. We're not supposed to tell them what they're supposed to think. We are supposed to provide them with a supportive space. And so how can we meet those objectives without just relying on an email, as we said, and it really does go back to who are we and are we lining that up with our actions? Oh my goodness, I feel like we could talk for hours on this topic alone. Looks like we've got about five minutes left. So Emily, I'm going to come to you for this last question. And it's another sort of hot seat question. So if you are in a situation where the crisis on campus involves leadership, how do you navigate those tough conversations? And how do you balance service to a leader versus service to your institution? So it might be the hardest question and thank you for making me answer it. So it's, you know, it's very, very challenging. And I think, again, it goes back to having the conversation when there's not a crisis. And being, there's a lot of what we've talked about. We haven't mentioned the word, but a lot of what we've talked about in being able to navigate all of this effectively and to be helpful is about trust. So, you know, you have to be able, and it's also about, you know, getting back to the expertise and the facts and on when there's, on the off times when there's not a crisis and there's like little brief moments in your life, when you can talk about what the impact can be. And, you know, I have come to understand, you know, different leadership styles and different leaders and personalities and, you know, over, you know, three decades of doing this, but, and sometimes it comes down to that. But I think if you can build some trust, if you can have these conversations, they're always hard conversations no matter what, but if you can have them when there isn't a crisis, when it's not harder to have the conversation, that's the best. And when you can really lay out what different, you know, action or inaction, what impact it can have, you know, what the result of that can be, can be on the reputation of the school or on their own reputation, which these days is also something to consider because oftentimes, and we've seen, you know, especially in with university, there's lots of, lots of reports, lots of articles being written about the role of the university president, for instance, and how challenging that is these days. And a lot of those articles include a lot of what we're talking about and their action or inaction and the face of a crisis. And that has in some cases been the downfall of, of many, many university presidents and or has, has, you know, made a lot of them shy away from the job, which is unfortunate. So I think, I think really what has to happen is there has to, there has to be a real understanding of how important we are and how important this role is and how important dedicating time and effort to building these plans and, and having these conversations and, and, and having, just like fundraising and enrollment and, and, you know, campus development are all priorities of, of a university president and the cabinet. This needs to be in that, in that short list at the top as well. That's excellent. Thank you, friends. I am so grateful for, again, this gift of your wisdom and time to our members who have joined us this afternoon. For participants, again, for those that have tuned in after we started, if you revisit the event link after this session has wrapped, you will be able to access this recording, but you will also be able to access two curated collections, one around the fundamentals of crisis communications, some really useful pieces about how to develop your own campus strategies, and then a collection that's related to this specific moment in time that we find ourselves reacting geopolitically, all of our campuses. I am grateful for your time. Thank you. I hope each of you has a wonderful and joy filled start to the holiday. Thank you so much.

crisis communications

campus response

leaders in communication

crisis management

preparedness

clear and accurate messaging

transparency

collaboration

leadership in crisis management