Campus Continuity at UCOP

The Office of the President of the University of California (UCOP) has been proactive about campus continuity for a number of years, even before concerns were heightened, post 9/11.

Although the university's mission is research, teaching and public service, rather than corporate earnings, standard business continuity principles and processes can be applied to a campus "business" environment. The overall goal should be to reduce risk and minimise disruption of campus research and academic programs. The focus should be on discrete campus building or system failure, rather than trying to deal with the overwhelming aftermath of a catastrophic disaster.

Until the terrorist attacks of 2001, Business Continuity Management programming was mostly an IT-oriented field. Since then, it has become an enterprise-wide concern for an ever-widening number of industries.

The first adopters to expanded BCM standards were governments and the financial services industry (FSI). Although a campus setting was not an initial focus, security experts, insurers and BCM programmers began identifying them as potential "soft targets" for terrorism, not to mention places that are becoming more susceptible to a spate of naturally-occurring phenomena.

The campus is unique and therefore, for a BCM plan to be effective, it must be grounded in addressing vulnerabilities that compromise the fundamental mission of the institution. Disruptive events have the potential to disrupt teaching, research, fundraising, and even competitive standing. More and more educational institutions are looking to develop programs that are specifically tailored to their needs.