JCTC

Health and Safety Committee Meeting

Friday, November 7, 2008

10:00am, Downtown Campus, 6th Floor JEC Conference Room

 

Meeting began:  10:03am

 

Present:  Chris Carter  (Co-Chair), Carolyn Claxton (Co-Chair), Kaya Muller, Dennis Guagliardo, Cheryl O'Brien, Robert Brown, Valerie Riesser, Angie Riley Grimes, Relda Wright, and Nick O’Brien.

 

Not Present:  Mary Wyatt, Marion Gilkey, Matt Matthews, Garry Bowyer, Vic Nordmann, Marti Bingham, Susan Crist, Jerry Riedling, Jerry Terhune, Paul Watro, Charles Purvis, and Joe Myers.

 

1.      Safety Minute

·         Chris just let us know where the building exits were and where to meet in case we had to evacuate.  Also let us know where the rest rooms were.  Basically general safety things since we don’t all regularly come to this location.

2.      Miscellaneous Cool Stuff

·         Talked about how Chris went flying over Louisville yesterday with the Civil Air Patrol to get checked out on a particular aircraft.

·         That reminded Dennis that he would like an aerial picture of the tech campus at an oblique (not directly above) angle.

·         It was also mentioned that Chef Nancy is still recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident on campus earlier in the week.

1.      Determination of next meeting location and schedule

·         Chris is still working on figuring out how to do a meeting through the computer.  The hang-up was his old computer could not do.  Now that he has his new computer, he just needs to get the software installed and figure out how to do.  Stay tuned!

·         We decided to cancel the December meeting.

·         Our next meeting will be Friday, January 9, 2009 at 10:00am on the Tech campus, location TBA.

2.      CERT (Community Emergency Response Training) Training

·         CERT training is optional and is provided through the Fire Commission.  It teaches an overview of CPR, a bit of search and rescue, what to do in natural disasters and so on.

·         This training begins in January for all interested folks.  It is a four-day commitment.  Here is the information Katy Varner sent out in an e-mail on 10/31:
“This is a 16 hour extensive training that teaches participants first aid, crisis management and facility preparation.  If you are interested in attending this program, please call or e-mail Melissa Tabor. Her number is 213-7204.  This is a 16 hour, four week commitment.  Dates, January 23, January 30, February 6 and February 13 from 8:30 to 12:30 in the Quinlan Seminar Hall.”

·         Chris is hoping that with people going through CERT training he will be able to get people to volunteer to be building/floor coordinators.  These coordinators would do things like help usher people to exit points during building evacuations (like for fires) or direct people to proper shelter areas during tornadoes.

3.      From previous meetings

·         Security has begun looking at the evacuation signs to see what needs to be updated and so on.  Dennis hasn’t gotten any information from them yet, but Chris indicated that he should soon.  Chris asked security to begin with the Brown Theatre as it had no appropriate signage.  Hopefully they have finished that.  Security is trying to look at the evacuation signs in a systematic fashion.  So, this is in progress.

·         Drafts from previous year about Smoke-free areas and Smoke-free campus issues are currently hiding because of the computer switch Chris made.  He hopes to locate and send the drafts out to us soon.  It was suggested that we could have an e-mail discussion about the drafts during December since we won’t be meeting.

·         Inventory of First Aid kits and such is also a project that is ongoing and will hopefully happen as we have discussed in previous meetings.

4.      New business

·         AED oversight/training

                                                              i.      This hasn’t been resolved yet, but not for lack of trying!

                                                            ii.      The administration is beginning to help figure out how to do this.  Were possibly going to get a current vendor to do, but something in that vendor’s contract wouldn’t allow and couldn’t change contract for some reason.

                                                          iii.      Chris has another vendor with a quote trying to get in contact with him (phone tag issues).  He is planning on asking them if perhaps they could be the oversight and then we could get the machines and the oversight with one package.

·         Should we publish our committee’s minutes?

                                                              i.      Chris asked if anyone had been able to attend the Population Center Training.  Since none of us had he shared with us that at one session he attended they had recommended that the minutes of our health and safety committee get published.

                                                            ii.      We discussed and decided that sure we could publish, but not via e-mail!  Chris and Kaya are going to look into how and where to put the minutes.  The minutes were published before at http://www.jefferson.kctcs.edu/docs/committee_Minutes/HSAF_Health-Saftey/, but the last entry there is back in 2004-05.  Once that is done, it was suggested we send one e-mail letting everyone know where to go read minutes for our meeting if they like.

                                                          iii.      While on this topic, it was asked what our “job description” was and what as members we were supposed to do.  That way when people read our minutes they will know if we are doing what we are supposed to be or not (and we can know too!).  It is as follows “This district-wide committee is active in dealing with health and safety issues that impact students, faculty, and staff. They often bring recommendations to the CLT and/or Faculty Council on ways to improve the college environment in these two areas.”  This was in the e-mail with the committee assignments at the beginning of the year; Kaya could not locate in the KCTCS policy manual though.

·         Have the flip charts been distributed?

                                                              i.      Alas, the answer was much the same as last time.  A few people have gotten, most have not.

                                                            ii.      Chris will try and find out where they are at on the various campuses.  Then, there might be a mass e-mail telling people where to pick up a copy if they have not received one.  They were not available at PD day this year because the box with them in it did not make it to PD day.

·         Internet back-up?

                                                              i.      A while back, Southwest campus lost internet and phones because the fiber optic line to the campus was reportedly shot with a 22 along Old 3rd Street Rd.  Kaya inquired if there is some way to make sure that there was a back-up to the internet and/or phones so that all of the SW campus’ communication could not be terminated so easily (worst case scenario, a planned attack where the fiber optic line was targeted prior to the attack so that phones and SNAP would be out). 

                                                            ii.      Apparently, IT is working on back-up power for the phones in case of power outage so maybe this can get worked on at the same time.

·         SNAP

                                                              i.      Chris wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the cell-phone opt-in that people can do with SNAP is no fool-proof.  When SNAP is activated, the Jefferson phones and computers get the alerts first.  Cell phones are thus third on the list for being notified.  When we send out a SNAP alert, it goes to an aggregator (who has permission to send a massive cell phone call) and then to the cell phone providers.  Why do we need the aggregator?  Not just anyone can send text hundreds of phones at once to prevent spam.  Even with the aggregator, our SNAP message might get pegged spam by the cell phone providers.  Finally, we have no control over when the message will be delivered.  One message was received by users 1½ days after we sent it!  So, do not count on that cell-phone opt-in.

                                                            ii.      The other parts of SNAP, we are still learning how to use and will get better with experience.

·         Student issuing threat

                                                              i.      It was brought up that a former student (just last week) had threatened some faculty and current students.  So, we discussed what should be done in that specific case and in general for all.  It was asked “who decided” which situation you have of the two below.  The answer is you do.  How do you feel about the situation?  Here is what to do in general:

1.      Let’s say you feel very threatened by the situation, make the following calls as soon as possible in this order:  1) call 911, 2) call security, 3) call the administration (deans, president, dean of student affairs), 4) call Chris Carter.  You could always call the police direct line instead of 911 if you thought serious enough to call police but weren’t sure if you wanted to dial 911.  However, Chris would rather you call 911 and feel like you are crying “wolf” than not call 911 and really need it.

2.      Let’s say you feel just a bit threatened by the situation, make the following calls as soon as possible in this order:  1) call security, 2) call the administration (deans, president, dean of student affairs), 3) call Chris Carter.

                                                            ii.      Once we got through who to call when, the faculty who brought up the situation mentioned that they did not know what the person looked like who made the threats.  So, can we get their picture from their ID?  Well, ID pictures are saved and can be retrieved.  However, Chris will have to ask Laura about whether we can distribute that picture beyond security.  And, yes, Jefferson is still giving out student ID’s with pictures.  The procedure varies from campus location.

                                                          iii.      If we call the police, can they do anything?  If a simply threat, unfortunately their response is likely to be that they can’t do anything if there have been no crimes committed.  However in this specific case, terroristic threats were made which is a crime.  So in this case and others like it, more will be done to protect all (like hiring an off-duty police officer to help guard like what is done at the DT library).  In other cases, what can people do?  They could individually take out restraining orders.  However, Jefferson as an institution cannot do this.  If an faculty member or a student has a restraining order against a person who might come on campus, security needs to know about the restraining order so that they can help protect the person with the order.

 

 

Meeting adjourned:  11:08am