MCC Lands DOE Grant for Campus Safety

Middlesex Community College is one of only 13 colleges nationwide to this week receive a U.S. Department of Education grant offered for the first-time ever as part of a program to address campus safety issues for higher education institutions.

MCC was awarded nearly $190,000 as part of the program announced on Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.  In all, the DOE awarded $5.2 million for the 13 grants nationwide.

"Keeping students safe starts with planning ahead," Spellings said in a release. "These new grants will help college administrators coordinate with law enforcement, health officials, and state and local governments to prevent violence and prepare institutions to respond quickly and efficiently if emergencies occur."

Funded for the first time in 2008, Emergency Management for Higher Education (EMHE) grants fund activities within the four phases of emergency management—prevention-mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery—to prepare for the whole range of threats that can impact a campus, including, but not limited to: natural disasters, terrorist attacks, campus violence, suicides, and infectious disease outbreaks. The grants are for 18 months.

Funding for the EMHE grants is made available through the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools and the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

MCC President Cowan said she was honored and excited that MCC was able to secure funding in this first-time program, as it will allow the college to quickly enact some critical training plans for its two campuses, in Lowell and Bedford.

"Across the nation, we're seeing more and more trends within higher education to focus on internal systems and more effective ways of dealing with a crisis on our campuses," said Cowan. "This funding will allow Middlesex to implement critical training for a significant number of our management and administration personnel to help ensure a safer campus community for our students, faculty and staff."

Cowan said the training relies on the critical law enforcement partnerships that the college currently experiences, such as collaborations with the Lowell and Bedford Police Departments, the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), the Massachusetts State Police and the Middlesex District Attorney's Office.

Middlesex currently has a two-tiered Emergency Management Team, consisting of 68 members of the college community, all of whom will be undergoing a series of trainings in incident command, active shooter on campus response systems, and emergency preparedness. Additionally, MCC will use the grant opportunity to refine its existing emergency management plans.