After the arrest of Syracuse University student Brian T. Shaw in connection with the death of the mother of his child, Chiarra Seals, campus officials have been working to console students, faculty and concerned parents affected by the crime.

But the university’s job does not stop there. When any other serious crime or disaster affects the SU community, it falls upon the shoulders of a specialized committee to deal with the crisis.

The Critical Incident Management Team is a group of several faculty members representing various schools and colleges at SU as well as State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry that convenes to guide the management of crucial situations on campus, said Kevin Morrow, director of SU news services.

‘When we’re facing a critical situation, the CIMT gathers, learns all the facts known at the time and determines the best course of action,’ Morrow said.

Morrow said when news broke of Shaw’s arrest last week, the CIMT worked closely with Chancellor Nancy Cantor to determine the university’s response to the incident. Although Cantor does not sit in on the CIMT meetings, shortly after the team first met, it brought Cantor up to date, which allowed her to write a response to the student body through Campus Hot News.

Marlene Hall, Director of Public Safety and a member of the CIMT, said Cantor makes it her job to be constantly informed about what is happening on campus.

‘She’s a very well-informed person,’ Hall said. ‘She surrounds herself with people like the CIMT.’

Mary Jo Custer, director of student affairs and co-chair of CIMT, also praised Cantor for her role in crisis management.

‘The chancellor is the pivotal leadership for the CIMT,’ Custer said. ‘She did not falter; she led through the process.’

Thomas Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel, also co-chairs the CIMT with Custer.

‘Our first priority is the students and we make outreach efforts for them,’ Custer said. ‘We find out who is impacted and affected.’

The CIMT holds monthly meetings to discuss possible disastrous scenarios that could affect the campus community. Custer said the CIMT has lately been focusing on students dying from alcohol poisoning, something that has become increasingly more common on other college campuses.

At the beginning of last semester, Custer said it was because of the CIMT that the university was able to respond quickly to the advisory issued by Onondaga County regarding algae in the drinking water. The CIMT was able to distribute several thousand bottles of water around campus while the advisory was in effect.

Custer said the CIMT is currently occupied with the Shaw case, speaking to classes in which he attended and offering counseling to friends and faculty close to him.

‘The counseling center has been more busy than usual,’ Custer said.

The CIMT also sent ‘fact people’ to Shaw’s classes to update his classmates on the true situation and quell any rumors that may have arisen, Custer said.

‘Some students do not even know what happened,’ Custer said.

Even with a student arrested on murder charges, the CIMT is no stranger to tragedy on campus. When Simeon Popov, a graduate student attending SU from Bulgaria, was murdered off of Euclid Avenue in January of 2002, the CIMT met in the ‘wee hours of the morning’ to discuss the appropriate actions to take, a complicated situation, Morrow said.

‘First and foremost we had to reach out to (Popov’s) parents in Bulgaria,’ Morrow said. ‘We had to deal with time differences and language differences.’

For the Popov murder, the CIMT had to reach out to Popov’s friends, roommates, classmates and professors and offer them counseling options, Morrow said. Morrow also said questions were raised by concerned parents about the safety of off-campus housing.

‘Overall, I think our handling of the situation was exceptional,’ Morrow said.

The CIMT won the Gold Medal Award from The Council for Advancement and Support of Education in 2002 for its handling of the Popov situation.

‘Syracuse University is very adept at incident management,’ Morrow said. ‘We’ve dealt with everything from natural disasters to student deaths.’

As for the parents of students, it often takes time for news of disastrous events occurring on campus to reach them. The Parents Office, under the direction of Colleen Bench, takes calls from concerned parents.

Bench said she has received very few calls regarding the Shaw case, and those parents who did called were primarily concerned with where the murder took place. Like students, Bench said parents often get their facts confused.

‘A lot of times when parents call out of the blue we have to do rumor control,’ Bench said. ‘They call to get facts about the case.’

Bench said she also received a few calls related to Darnell McMullin, the 16-year-old who was found dead in Thornden Park. Bench said most of those calls were from parents wondering if McMullin was a student at SU and concerned about the proximity of where the body was found to campus.

‘We get calls about safety and security all the time, generally from parents whose students were impacted,’ Bench said.

Bench also mentioned the Popov murder as an example of how the Parents Office deals with tragedy. She said several parents called the office in the days following the murder, many due to the ‘shock and devastation for his family.’

Again, Bench said rumor control was a large part in dealing with parents worried about Popov’s murder. She had to assure parents the murder took place off-campus, and not in a residence hall.

‘It drew a lot of calls about safety and security,’ Bench said. ‘In my 14 years here that was the only murder that had occurred.’

When parents call about specific crimes on or near campus, Bench said she often refers them to the Public Safety Web site, which keeps a log of all the reported crimes affecting SU students.

Hall said Public Safety has also received very few calls regarding the Shaw case, which she attributes to many parents not knowing about it. She said most parents who do know about crimes on campus either read it in The Post-Standard, The Daily Orange or hear about it from their child at SU.

‘We haven’t developed a way that would be more proactive (at getting information out),’ Hall said.

But as a member of the CIMT, Hall says it is her job to be informed about what is happening around campus in order to benefit the university community better.

‘From my aspect, I have a responsibility to make sure that the administration is apprised of what’s going,’ Hall said.

Published on March 30, 2005 at 12:00 pm