The home page of the UConn Office of Emergency Management’s website. (Screen Grab)
The Office of Emergency Management (OEM), established in 2014, has launched a new campaign called UConn Ready.
“The Office of Emergency Management coordinates preparedness efforts and emergency training of staff, faculty and students across every UConn campus,” according to the OEM website.
UConn Ready is a program that is designed to “raise awareness of emergency management issues,” according to a UConn Ready presentation.
“We want the UConn community to be aware,” University of Connecticut fire captain Chis Renshaw said.
One part of the campaign is an emergency hazard guide on the OEM website that gives information on how to prepare and respond to various emergencies, according to the presentation. The emergencies that are covered are active shooter threats, bomb threats, power outages and lockdowns, according to the presentation.
The campaign was based off of the Department of Homeland Security’s program called “Ready,” Renshaw said.
“We based it off of what other colleges were doing and waited so that we can learn from them and their mistakes, and improve our program,” Renshaw said.
The University of Massachusetts, Yale University and the University of Alabama were some of the schools looked at, Renshaw said. Although UConn Ready was based off of similar programs, it was created to be unique to the UConn community.
The OEM wants to promote UConn Ready through posters on busses, social media and by posting flyers and posters around campus, Renshaw said.
“We want to be as recognizable as Smokey the Bear,” Renshaw said.
The goal of promoting UConn Ready is not only to raise awareness, but to also have a sort of familiarity to the UConn community, Renshaw said.
“If people look at a sign for UConn Ready for 30 seconds and have in in the back of their mind and think about it for even one second after, then we won,” Renshaw said.
Annabelle Orlando is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at annabelle.orlando@uconn.edu.