EMERGENCY PLANNING
April 2003

The Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin ("CBB") Off-Campus Study program is committed to keeping the students, faculty, and staff at our off-campus sites safe. We do this in the following ways:

Pre-trip Preparation
· Orientations are held in Maine for students and faculty attending CBB programs, and health and safety issues at the different sites are discussed, including information published by the U.S. State Department and the Center for Disease Control.
· Student and faculty handbooks, which contain sections that safety and security, health, insurance, CBB alcohol and drug policies, and where students can go to get help, are distributed to all participants. The faculty handbook contains detailed emergency procedures.
· On-site administrative directors attend a training workshop on program management, in the U.S.

On-site Preparation
· Upon arrival, students and faculty participate in an orientation to the CBB center and the city where they will be living, organized by the on-site administrative director. These orientations include safety precautions that students and faculty need to take while participating in the program and can involve local education, health, and safety authorities.
· All students are registered at the local U.S. Embassy or Consulate.
· As situations change during the semester, updated safety information and safety precautions are passed on to students and faculty.

Monitoring Safety
The CBB Off-Campus Study Program monitors the safety situation at each CBB site. Our on-site administrators and faculty directors keep the CBB OCS office appraised of any changes to the local safety situation, and we use the following sources:
· The local U.S. embassy or consulate information
· U.S. State Department travel announcements, warnings, country pages, and consultations
· Information from other off-campus study programs and organizations
· Information from faculty experts

When the unexpected happens
Emergencies take many forms and different procedures are needed to deal with them. Detailed procedures for dealing with individual or small group emergencies are published in the faculty handbooks. These include: serious accidents, sexual assault, student arrest, and student death.

In a situation affecting the entire program, CBB Off-Campus will carefully monitor the situation and determine what action to take. CBB will evacuate or cancel one of its programs only if one or more of the following conditions are met:

· The U.S. State Department issues a travel Warning for the country in which the program is located, recommending that Americans currently in the country leave,
· The program is no longer able to provide adequate academic and social services,
· Local staff and faculty as well as CBB administration determine that the health and safety of its students and faculty are compromised by the continuation of the program.

Other actions the program could take, include, but are not limited to:

· Suspension or constraint of individual student travel
· Suspension or constraint of group travel
· Meeting with U.S. Embassy or Consulate representatives
· Moving the program to another site within the country
· Moving the program to another country

For details on CBB Policies on ccademic credit and financial reimbursement in cases of program cancellation.