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Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP)

Columbia College has always been prepared, to the greatest extent possible, to respond to hazardous events. That being said, the College has grown increasingly aware of the increased number and kind of potential emergencies and their ability to disrupt operations and jeopardize the safety of faculty, staff and students. Consequently, there is a need to build the capacity to respond to events of greater depth and breadth in their ability to disrupt or even dismantle the College’s capability to perform essential functions. The College is determined to continue to develop and maintain a program that preserves, maintains and reconstitutes its ability to function in an emergency condition.

Emergency planning, including continuity of operations planning, is a critical function for the College. In addition, it is good business practice. The College must have the capability to continue to conduct certain operations during an emergency and to resume others rapidly and efficiently once the immediate crisis has passed. While the impact of an emergency cannot be predicted, planning for operating under such conditions can mitigate that impact on our people, our facilities and our mission.

The purpose of the Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) is the rapid recovery from the effects of a man-made, technological or natural disaster. The COOP covers essential College operations, schools, departments and service areas, including contracted operations. Using an all-hazards approach, the plan ensures that regardless of the event, essential functions will continue to operate and services will continue to be provided to the extent possible to faculty, staff and students. This approach anticipates the full range of potential emergencies, from those that cause the temporary interruption of a single function to the shutdown of the entire campus or region requiring the suspension of all non-essential functions and the relocation of essential functions to an alternative site for an extended period of time.

The mission of the College is teaching, research and public service. The COOP is based on the principle that during an emergency the mission of the College must solely be the preservation of health and life safety, the protection of property, the protection of research and the return to normal or near normal operations as quickly as is feasible. The goal of protecting research is to ensure to the greatest extent possible that nothing is lost while the activities associated with that research are suspended. The COOP establishes policy guidance and procedures to ensure the continued operation of functions deemed to be part of the fundamental mission in the event of an incident that threatens or incapacitates people and operations.

It is the College’s intention to ensure the continued performance of minimum essential functions on campus during a wide range of potential emergencies and to make provision for alternative facilities if needed. Ultimately, the ability to respond to and recover from emergencies affecting Columbia College’s operations depends on the training, proficiency, and health of its employees, available resources and clarity of leadership. This COOP supports employees and contractors, system users, emergency responders, local and regional emergency management agencies, and the general public during emergencies.

The plan:

• Ensures the capability to implement the COOP both with and without warning.
• Includes regularly scheduled testing, training, and exercising of agency personnel, equipment, systems, processes, and procedures used to support the agency during a COOP event.
• Provides for a regular risk analysis of current alternate operating facilities.
• Identifies and documents temporary operating procedures which enable the performance of essential functions.
• Identifies alternate facilities for the operation of essential functions that maximize our ability to initiate, maintain, and terminate operations as needed.
• Promotes the development, maintenance, and annual review of agency COOP capabilities.

The COOP contains administrative and academic department annexes that allow them, and their respective sub-departments, to define critical assets and functions. The purpose is to assist departments in formulating how they would continue to perform essential functions and preserve critical assets during an emergency as well as to increase the level of departmental involvement in the formulation of the plan. Each department is asked to provide the following information:

• General responsibilities and functions
• Essential functions critical during emergency mission alterations
• Emergency contact information
• Emergency communication plan
• Critical information assets (electronic and hard copy), including purpose, responsible person, and impact of loss
• Plan for accessing assets during an emergency, including off-site storage and alternative site access
• List of essential functions for extended maintenance, including primary, alternate, and second alternate personnel
• Protection and interim solutions for essential functions if lost
• Departmental leadership succession
• Dependencies on other College departments during normal and emergency operations
• Dependencies on external providers during normal and emergency operations, including product/service, primary/secondary providers, contact information, and departmental liaison
• Impact on the College if goods or services are unavailable for an extended period
• Mitigation strategies to lessen emergency impact Recovery steps to return to normal operations
• Method for accounting for staff near the incident site and at alternative sites
• Special considerations the department may face in an emergency

Information gathered from the departmental annexes is used in the formulation of the College’s comprehensive COOP. The comprehensive COOP also provides policy and guidance to ensure the ability to restore essential functions within the recovery times established by the institution.