By SHANNON O. WELLS
When he arrived at Pitt three years ago and got involved with commencement day safety planning, Bob Chamberlain initially assumed preparation would focus primarily on the largest event held at the Petersen Events Center.
Conversations he’s had with campus officials, including Taylor Traversari, general manager of the Pete, however, brought home just how many commencement-related tentacles extended beyond the big arena up the hill.
“We’ve always focused on the Pete, but I didn’t know till the last year how many events there really are,” said Chamberlain, emergency coordinator for the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management.
Approximately 50 separate exercises take place on and around April 28 — the date of undergraduate commencement at the Pete. “There’s some that (tell us), ‘We’re doing it right out from our building, with 10 people.’ And that gives us the opportunity to coordinate police coverage.
“(Pitt Police) might not be there at that 10-person event,” he explained, “but they’re right next door for that 200-person event, helping out, so (officers say), ‘Yep, my responsibility is also this event over here.’ We have people covering everything.”
Covering everything, of course, takes a great deal of preparation and coordination. Chamberlain — a former U.S. Army intelligence officer with 24 years of interagency, multinational and counterterrorism experience — spotlighted these efforts during a Office of Public Safety & Emergency Management informational forum, “Security and Safety Concerns During Commencement and Separate Graduation Exercises,” held March 21 in the Petersen Events Center’s Valasek Family Club.
Initiated by Ted Fritz, vice chancellor for public safety and emergency management, the event, attended by about 25 people from a range of University roles, touched on security protocols and safety concerns at commencement venues, including The Pete and individual school sites; emergency evacuation scenarios; “What if …” vignettes; and updated lists of key contacts.
The 2024 Spring Commencement for undergraduates will be at 1 p.m. April 28 at the Petersen Events Center.
Bad weather on commencement day can lead to problems ranging from discomfort waiting in lines to the threat of lightning strikes and complications in the event of a building evacuation. At last year’s commencement, Chamberlain recalled watching people standing outside, where “no one was gonna give up their place in line for anything, and lightning was going around there,” he said. “We were like, ‘Oh, this is not gonna be good.’”
Chamberlain encouraged forum attendees in charge of commencement events to keep track of what the weather will be.
“We see how it’s going, and then we can let our people know, ‘Hey, it’s gonna be bad weather here. This is what you’ve got to look for. We can start planning this,” Chamberlain said.
If the Pete needs to be evacuated for whatever reason — including a bomb threat or active shooter report — weather as well as capacity at nearby venues must be considered before transferring people elsewhere. “Is it Trees (Hall), or do we just move some people into Fitzgerald (Field House)?” Chamberlain asked, “because the Fitzgerald wasn’t full last year, and that was the overflow venue.”
Chamberlain also addressed evacuating William Pitt Union. “What if I have to evacuate that for any reason at all? What happens to those people? You know, on a sunny day like this, this is great. Otherwise, where do I send them? And that’s something we discussed last year.
“I don’t want to interfere with anybody else’s venue,” he added. “If I send ‘em to Bellefield or Alumni Hall, that might interfere with another event that’s going on there.”
Chamberlain said there may be “multiple places” to send people, depending on the type of incident and weather. When it’s sunny and dry, he noted, “it’s easy, you send them outside — until it’s raining, especially if we have a lot of older family members that are out there. That could be a challenge. Please look into that, and we can help you develop that plan too.”
Responding to a question of who should be contacted for a problem at off-campus commencement events, such as at Soldiers & Sailors, which is in the City of Pittsburgh’s jurisdiction, Robert Holler, commander of operations with Pitt Police, said calling either Pittsburgh Police or University police dispatch will send units to the location to deal with the problem.
“We’re not going to make any delays,” he said. “If there’s an issue, we’re sending people. We’re not concerned at that point who’s in charge of the facility or anything like that, but if it’s in our jurisdiction, we’re sending people.”
Andrew Redman, Pitt Police’s commander of regional campuses and deputy chief of police, said absent something illegal or dangerous, “we would need to coordinate with whoever’s running the graduation on exclusions from the ceremony or ejections from the building. So that’s something you guys would have to think about,” he added, of parameters for excluding someone from a building. But for anything illegal or dangerous, “we would just handle it.”
If an active shooter is reported at, say, the William Pitt Union or Soldiers & Sailors, Holler said, “we’re gonna start units in that direction. Obviously, if only one call comes in, that’s a sign to us that this might be some sort of hoax. If we start getting multiple calls in that there’s something going on, the alert level’s gonna go up.”
For specific guidelines on emergency situations, including bomb threats or active killer situations, visit the Pitt Police’s Emergency Situation Information and Resources website.
Clear communication
Chamberlain highlighted what he called a “fluid” document his office put together that lists most events taking place during commencement week along with the corresponding points of contact.
If the communications center gets a call saying, “‘Hey, there’s someone shooting up the place there,’ we can either call the person there while we’re dispatching units to go there, or even call the officer at Bellefield,” he said. “We might have an officer there (and ask) ‘Are people shooting up the place? … ‘Well, no, not at all.’ We can still send people out there, but then we can just verify this. So please check this (document).”
In the interest of better communication during these events, Redman encouraged staff and faculty to sign up for Emergency Notification Service (ENS) alerts and messages. “You’ll get the email, but I encourage you all to go on the IT website and sign up for the voice and the text message alerts, because that’ll help get information,” he said. “Probably no one’s going to check their email during their graduation, so (alerts) will help to get us information (out in) a timely manner.”
He also urged downloading the Rave Guardian app from the Information Technology Services Portal website, “You can communicate, you can text our dispatch center in live, real time. So I encourage you, if everyone’s worried about communication during those events, to download those two things and make sure you’re signed up for notifications.”
Chamberlain said he and Charlyn Loera, business continuity coordinator for Public Safety & Emergency Management, will run the Pitt Emergency Operation Center on Commencement Day.
“We’ll put out some contact information that you can reach us … so if anything looks bad there, like ‘Oh, at Alumni Hall we have a traffic problem right here, I will probably be able to call (a point of contact) for that exercise at Alumni Hall and let them know that, ‘Hey, you might want to wait five-10 minutes because there’s a big buildup in this area here. So please, (help with) communicating. It’s all about getting your name and contact information.”
Student unions, move-out day
Katy Tufts, associate director of student unions in the Division of Student Affairs, said she and Amber Greenbaum, assistant director of special events, serve as informational “outlets” for those coordinating graduation ceremonies at William Pitt Union and the O’Hara Student Center as well as for safety concerns in and around those facilities.
“Please feel free to stop at the information desk and grab us,” Tufts said. “We can get in touch with the police as well. If you don’t see what you need on those days, please check in with us and make sure you have your rooms booked, and we’ll have the appropriate details as well.”
Julie Bannister, assistant vice chancellor for auxiliary services, noted that the Friday and Saturday of commencement weekend are busy days for students moving out of residences, particularly in the upper campus area. “So if something happens, be mindful that there’s people moving out … We have a lot of extra families here just moving (and parking in) the red zones, not associated necessarily with graduation.”
Noting that Sunday that weekend is less busy for move-outs, she asked that “if something happens, just being aware of what’s going on so we can help guide parents accordingly as well.”
In closing, Dave DeJong, senior vice chancellor of business & operations, thanked everyone who took part in the event.
“You can see that even innocuous (event-related) questions require a significant amount of communication, coordination and cooperation,” he said. “We all want these events to go off as well as possible — safely, securely, in the comfort of the families — to make it the joyful occasion that it is.
“So I really appreciate you being here today (and) all the behind the scenes work that’s happening,” he added. “So, just thank you.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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