The DRU's 2016 and 2022 national surveys found that many DRU members wanted to know more about incident management teams (IMTs). Accordingly, on April 15, 2025, 12 attendees from nine IHEs assembled to share how they built and operate their IMTs (also known as crisis management teams).
What School's Said About Their IMTs
In this facilitated group discussion, participants described the composition of their IMTs.
School 1
School 1's IMT formed in 2007 as an eight-person advisory committee. Today its IMT has 65 members representing 16 VPs. COVID was the IMT's biggest response to date, with 200+ people acting as part of the IMT. The school now struggles with the communication and management needs associated with such a large IMT.
The school requires certification to become an incident commander or section chief, including section-specific FEMA training. The time commitment associated with the training has helped the school cope with various IHE personnel demanding a role on the IMT.
Initially, the IHE's campus housing team refused to join the IMT because it wanted all housing personnel on hand during an event. The IHE learned that it could persuade these and other key constituents to engage with the IHE by reminding them that participation could provide faster access to more information and resources during an event.
School 2
School 2's state-level IMT is relatively new. School 2 formed its IMT, which it calls a crisis management advisory group, after a high-profile incident that garnered national attention. The diverse team includes an administrative review group that provides information about asset locations and how an incident affects specific teams. During an event, members representing assets or teams that are not affected by the event can drop off and the remaining people form the IMT.
School 2's IMT activation process begins with a 15-minute conference call with the school's emergency management team. The call follows a structured outline and facilitates situation reporting from various teams. The school has been investing in credentialing and formal training for its IMT leaders.
Where needed, School 2 requires VPs to sign a formal letter delegating the decision-making authority to their IMT representatives during an event. This avoids slowdowns by allowing IMT members to make decisions as needed rather than having to go back and seek permission before taking action.
School 3
Until recently, School 3 had an emergency operations center (EOC) that was physically difficult to activate, so the school relies on intermediate response via a triage assessment team. It categorizes events from level 1 (small events that can be handled with standard operating procedures) to level 3 (significant events such as earthquakes). Level 2 events may affect one or more buildings or infrastructure.
When an event occurs, School 3 uses Everbridge to contact a 50-person team. The call does not have a formal structure but does follow a protocol to identify affected parties and next steps. School 3 then decides whether to open the EOC or delegate the work to a department lead (this may occur if there are no class cancellations, modified work schedules, or similar effects).
School 3 requires departments to pay for central services from the university, such as human resources, IT, and security. Departments may outsource other services, such as facilities maintenance or housekeeping. This can complicate information-gathering about facilities or other matters.
School 4
School 4 has a new IMT. The members include representatives from the IHE's senior counsel, local government and community engagement, student affairs, athletics, research, provost, victim assistance and trauma, budget and planning, public safety, events and events management, facilities, IT, registrar, issues management, strategic communications, and academic resource management teams. It is in the process of identifying people who can step in and lead if one of the IMT members cannot. Most of School 4's incidents can be managed with one or two teams.
When School 4 formed its IMT, many people asked to be involved. However, some departments don't attend training and exercises, and the school struggles to convince them that training and exercises aren't optional. The school recently hired a new chancellor who is focused on public safety, which has improved buy-in.
School 5
School 5 did not have an emergency management program until recently. Today it characterizes its IMT as "truly command and control." The school's IMT members must apply for membership and are selected based on their day-to-day roles and responsibilities. The IMT favors doers over decision-makers. The school provides crisis pay only to those the IMT identifies, which discourages nonessential personnel from coming to campus during or after an event. The policy also supports FEMA reimbursement policies for declared disasters.
School 5 requires IMT training and exercises for IMT members. School 5 said that from time-to-time people demand to be on the IMT. However, when they hear what their IMT duties are during an incident and are asked who will do their regular jobs in their absence, they often withdraw their requests.
At School 5, an event involving more than two departments and/or larger than 150 people runs through the emergency management team and IMT where needed. Event-specific IMTs are often staffed by the people who normally support the events.
School 6
School 6 bases its IMT structure on functional areas and works with the chief operating officer of each functional area. During an event, all team members set up on site to have eyes on the scene. There are few formal titles on the school's IMT.
School 7
School 7's emergency management team began in 2023; prior to that, the school had a hospital incident management team and a campus management team. Today, School 7 has an incident support team (IST) that unifies its campus and hospital teams.
The IST reports to the IHE's chancellor's executive team (CET) and senior executive team (SET). It also has a crisis leadership team. The IST coordinates functions, research requests, and external partners. School 7 describes its IMT as a "work in progress."
School 8
School 8's campus is porous and hard to close, as it is a big commuter campus and has many nontraditional students. School 8 uses a lot of buildings that are owned by the city. It also shares buildings with condo associations and third parties that have property managers, which means different entities may close different portions of buildings during shelter-in-place events. School 8 has a policy group (executive committee with advisory members) that oversees its IMT. The IHE's president is the head of the IMT. In light of recent incidents (demonstrations, occupations) the school would also like to have a dedicated PIO. School 8 has no formal ICS structure but has a lot of standing and on-call resources. School 8 says that sometimes campus groups don't know when to alert the IMT.
It would have been advantageous to know from the beginning that IMTs work best when utilized regularly including small incidents, not just waiting for a large event.
Training Requirements and Exercises
In this facilitated group discussion, participants described how and when they conduct their IMT trainings and exercises. The tables below summarize their programs.
Training Requirements
School | FEMA ICS Training requirements | Other Training Requirements | Challenges |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | ICS 100, 200, 700, and 800. ICS 300 and 400 for section chiefs and higher. | Situational awareness training and general response procedure training every fall. | Difficulty finding in-state 300 and 400 training, which lengthens time to complete training. |
2 | Not required unless IMT member is seeking type rating and participates in state or other IMT. | EMT and IMT orientation. |
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3 | Not required. | Onboarding briefing for new staff members and 1:1 consult of roles/responsibilities/expectations. | Is developing new training in coming year due to new EOC and online tool. |
4 | ICS 100, 200, 700, and 800. |
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5 | All: O-0305. ICS 100 and 700 if response personnel or if not a leadership role. | Special training for public information officers. | EM team must be available to provide the training. |
6 | Not required; develops all training courses in-house. | Level 1 for all. Level 2 for branch and unit leaders. Level 3 for section chiefs. |
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7 | N/A |
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8 | Not required. | Conducts tailored training for new members and uses checklists. | Tried to require 100 and 700 but were discontinued. |
Exercises and Frequency
School | Exercise Type | Recent topics | Challenges |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Annual tabletop. Ad hoc joint functional training. | Earthquake, cyber, crisis communications. Mass casualty. | Turnover affects the completion of to-dos from the after-action report. |
2 | Multiplayer training exercise plan. |
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3 | Developing training in the next 6-10 months. |
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4 | Quarterly trainings. Two annual joint exercises with IMT and related groups. | Scenarios are based on perceived threats from leadership: civil disturbances, pregame transportation. | Hazard annexes updated once every three years, which might drive exercises. |
5 | Quarterly policy team meetings. Quarterly IMT meetings. Exercises every 1-3 years. | Mass casualty, lab response drills, outbreak, cybersecurity breach, communication crisis, demonstrations. |
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6 | Quarterly drill for weather and housing. Quarterly mass casualty/decontamination drill. Monthly tabletop exercise at outpatient clinics. |
| Getting academic research involved in exercises. |
7 | Periodic tabletop exercises. | Earthquake, cyber, strike. | Added a hospital system with 1,200 employees overnight, which created challenges in determining how to train them. |
8 | Meetings every other month. Tabletops every six months. Annual department-level exercises. | Cybersecurity. | Does not write after-action reports due to small size of team. |
Roles and Expectations
Some schools shared more information about their IMT roles and expectations.
School 1
School 1 hosts a kick-off meeting every September to remind team members to notify the IMT if something is happening. The school also maintains a triage phone and an incident assessment team that decides whether to activate the IMT.
School 1 has created templates for incident action plans and situation reports. However, the academic continuity program is separate.
School 1 expects IMT members to maintain and update components of the school's emergency operations plan. It is also shifting work on functional annexes to the appropriate branches to distribute and encourage ownership instead of relying on IMT to solve all problems.
School 1's insurers know it has a rapid response IMT. In the last six years, insurers have asked for information about how the school responds to various emergencies. The school has started to self-insure in some areas.
School 3
At School 3, public safety, the emergency management department, or facilities handle mass notifications. Units can report an event through the EOC. Once the notice goes out, anyone on the IMT can log in, see what's been reported, and formulate a response and input. The school communicates with department operation centers via a dedicated conference call or it releases an incident action plan.
At School 3, the emergency management team is part of environmental health and safety, which is under the research arm of the IHE.
School 4
School 4's IMT include seven full-time employees, including people from events management, emergency management, public safety, continuity, and training. There is a liaison to the executive management policy group. Recent leadership changes at School 4 have changed the membership of the executive management policy group, as the chancellor prefers a smaller group.
School 5
School 5's emergency management team decides how and when to inform the policy team about whether a policy decision is needed. The emergency management team also notifies the command, general staff, situation leader, and resource leader about activation. The policy team isn't usually involved unless it's a demonstration where there are unique questions. School 5 maintains a master policy reference document that reflects past decisions. School 5 also notifies the city if it activates its IMT.
School 6
Each department or group at School 6 has a budget for dealing with emergencies. If they need more, they ask the IMT to activate.
School 8
In an event, the president and executive council make campus-level policy decisions. The IMT does initial assessments, notifications, and coordination. The IMT relies on training campus leaders to alert the team when the IMT needs to activate.
The school activates its IMT when an event has three characteristics:
- Overwhelms standard operating procedures, resources, or expertise of any one department.
- Involves or affects multiple departments, necessitating greater coordination.
- Presents or has potential for significant physical, financial, reputational, human, or operational impact.
Example reasons for IMT activation at school 8 include: COVID, winter storm, library occupation, and a partial power outage that affected a data center.
One thing I wish I had known in the early stages of developing our Incident Management Team is that it's impossible to maintain 100% visibility into all operations at all times. No matter how well prepared you are, you will enter incidents with blind spots. Early on, I learned the importance of quickly convening a broad group of institutional stakeholders to collectively assess scope and potential cascading impacts. From there, individuals can self-select out of the IMT if their areas aren't affected.
IMT Needs
During the sessions, participants developed a list of things some of their IHEs still need in the context of IMT.
- A clear definition of IMT, especially if the IMT members are also the members of other related teams.
- An adaptable one-page document with advice about how to demonstrate the value of IMT to senior leaders.
- Solutions for reliance on the same people to perform IMT roles and day-to-day EM roles when there is uncertainty about hot to get the buy-in to bring in outsiders.
- Assistance teams that help people who are somewhat trained without taking over or intruding.
- Easing requirements to bring on credentialed people when uncredentialed people would be fine in certain roles.
- More certainty about FEMA's viability and access to independent-study training courses.
- Checklists and scripts to automate processes, help people perform planning and communication roles, and provide real-time updates.
- A "starting a continuity program" toolkit.