How lessons from 9/11 can help colleges confront COVID-19 on campus

As the president of a liberal arts university with nearly 1,500 students about to return to campus, sleep has been in short supply. Along with every other college leader, we have worked nonstop with our colleagues to devise systems and new approaches that will allow our students, faculty and staff to be safely reunited — even as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise.

While I am proud of the work we have done to prepare for the fall semester, and am confident in our approach, I will admit to being apprehensive. This is all new territory — for us and for our students.

This virus is unpredictable. But I take great comfort knowing the lessons learned in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks can help us all smartly manage this latest crisis. The risk-based, intelligence-driven program we have developed at Anderson University has been informed by successes at my previous job, when I served as administrator at the Transportation Security Administration.

At TSA, I was privileged to lead a team that created TSA PreCheck, the expedited security-screening program that provides travelers with smarter security and a better travel experience. It has been an overwhelming success used by millions of travelers today.

Managing risks is key

When I resigned from TSA at the end of 2014, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said, “Shifting TSA from a one-size-fits-all approach to risk-based security has empowered the agency to provide the most effective security in the most efficient ways.”

That’s what we are attempting to do at Anderson University in responding to COVID-19. We can never eliminate all risks, but we can manage them, and in a way that allows students to still be students.

Working with our partners at Daon, identity management and biometric experts who safeguard bank accounts and other important assets, students, faculty and staff are being introduced to our new mobile health screening app that allows users to quickly assess their health status.

Called AU Together, the app will allow for daily COVID-19 health screenings for all our campus community. It has the added benefit of allowing for more effective contact tracing because students will use the app to scan into buildings.

Members of our campus community will engage in a daily self-screening that includes a temperature and symptom list. If a screening yields a fever or symptoms of COVID-19, they will be connected to campus health professionals to receive testing and resources that might be needed for their care. The individual’s contacts will then be notified for follow-up.

By introducing these public health safety protocols across campus, each person is surrounded by resources and support — and on devices they always have with them and are comfortable using.

As Dr. Sarah Neal, professor of nursing and head of our COVID-19 task force, explains, this type of risk-based approach will offer students the ability to return to campus with a measure of safety that would not otherwise be possible. It allows us to detect cases on campus and respond with a full set of resources for faculty, staff and students.

Colleges are enforcing social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Colleges are enforcing social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Everyone is a potential threat

When you consider how to approach COVID-19 versus terrorism, there is one obvious difference. In the world of terrorism we’re focused on an enemy, whereas with the coronavirus we’re focused on a classmate or teacher. Everybody is a potential threat to us — even those we hold dear.

So we must find solutions that work for everybody. We must ask ourselves, do the systems we are creating present an undue burden to our customers, in our case students, faculty and staff? And does it evoke a sense of safety and security?

In all cases, a risk-based security approach, as was used to develop TSA PreCheck, is preferable to “one-size-fits-all” solutions.

In developing AU Together, flexibility and adaptability were key factors, allowing a tailored system designed to mitigate risk with minimal disruption. That is what we all seek to achieve.

My passion, whether in government or now in academia, is to inspire and empower people to do their absolute best in transforming, adding value and making a difference in the lives of others. This global health crisis requires all of us in positions of leadership —especially on college campuses — to inspire our colleagues to be creative problem solvers on behalf of our students who are counting on us to find ways to bring some normalcy back to their lives.

Anderson University was founded in 1917 — the time of our last global pandemic. While I cannot imagine what it must have been like to build a college campus during a health emergency, I certainly know what it’s like to keep one operating. The lessons of the past will guide as forward. We’re all in this together.

John S. Pistole is president of Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. He served as Transportation Security Administration administrator from 2010 to 2014 and in the FBI from 1983 to 2010.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How lessons from 9/11 can help colleges cope with COVID-19