President McRobbie has shared the following message with senior administrators and campus leaders:
As all of us at IU continue to join individuals across our nation in mourning the victims of the deadly mass school shooting last week in Parkland, Fla., I wanted to take this opportunity to reiterate our shared responsibility to providing the greatest degree of protection for all members of the IU community.
As you know, there is nothing more important to us as a university than the safety and well-being of our students, employees and visitors to our campuses. Ours must be a constant and vigorous commitment to ensuring that our living and working spaces are as safe and secure as possible and that we are ready for any potential threats. To this end, we must continue to regularly review, update and exercise our emergency plans and make it as easy as possible for individuals to access important information and resources about health, safety and security.
I strongly encourage you to invite your students, faculty and staff to watch this new video to learn more about the federally recommended “Run, Hide, Fight” safety protocol for responding to an active shooter or aggressor and to visit this special webpage on the Protect IU site for additional information on these emergency situations.
Additionally, I urge you to remind members of your campus community to immediately sign up for IU-Notify to receive alerts on hostile intruders and any ongoing threats that could cause harm; those who are already signed up should ensure that their information is current. This is also a time to remind our campus communities that if they see a dangerous incident occurring to immediately call 911.
I want you to know that have directed our team responsible for managing IU’s Public Safety and Institutional Assurance mission to engage all of our campuses in expanding their regular training exercises for active shooter or aggressor attacks, including tabletop discussions and full-scale drills, and to assist in reviewing their emergency action and preparedness plans.
Finally, as we all struggle with the horrible tragedy in Florida and other acts of violence that have devastated our communities, let us strive to be kind, caring and supportive. Please remind your students, faculty and staff that individual support is available to them through the counseling services offices on our campuses.
Thank you for all you do to promote a culture of safety and caring at IU. Please share this information with your campus and school communities through appropriate mechanisms.
Yours sincerely,
Michael A. McRobbie