NCS4 Awards Indiana University Safety and Security Designation
Tue, 09/01/2015 - 09:16am | By: Alison Crumpton
The University of Southern Mississippi's National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) is pleased to announce that Indiana University is now the 11th institution in the nation to earn the prestigious Sport Event Security Aware (SESA) designation.
Fred Glass, Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Indiana University (IU), announced last week that IU attained the SESA designation for Memorial Stadium and Assembly Hall.
IU entered into an agreement with the NCS4 in March, 2014 to evaluate the safety and security of Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium and to make recommendations for improvements. A broad team of IU stakeholders including the Office of Emergency Management, IU Event Services, IU Police Department, IU Health Bloomington Hospital, Bloomington Fire Department, and IU Athletics personnel met with NCS4 assessors in Bloomington multiple times throughout 2014 and 2015.
Exercises were conducted and game day evaluations were performed at Memorial Stadium and Assembly Hall for the purpose of identifying areas for improvement. The team developed a plan that was accepted by NCS4 and recently culminated in SESA designation.
The improvement plan will be implemented beginning with the 2015 football season and will be evaluated again in each of the next three years to ensure execution of the plan and to regularly update the plan for continuous safety and security improvement.
“Receiving the SESA designation from NCS4 is a significant achievement and a tremendous honor that reflects our commitment to making Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium as safe as possible for our participants and fans,” said Glass. "We cannot thank NCS4 enough for their guidance through this process and all of the people at Indiana University who enabled us to attain this remarkable standard for safety and security.”
“Indiana University has reached the industry standard by achieving the Sports Event Security Aware designation,” said Lou Marciani, director of the NCS4. “It has been a rigorous process with collaboration among the campus law enforcement, athletic department, emergency management, emergency medical services, fire services and local, state and federal agencies.”
NCS4's comprehensive training and assessment process provides institutions with a set of scalable standards for assessing risks, identifying vulnerabilities, developing appropriate plans, policies and procedures, and providing training and exercise to facility staff.
The NCS4 SESA assessment programs offers a security planning process designed to promote a standardized methodology for security planning of sporting venues and events throughout the United States. SESA assessments are available to all professional, collegiate, high school and event organizations that own or operate sports facilities/events.
For more information about SESA, visit http://www.ncs4.com/SESA or contact Elizabeth Voorhees at 601.266.6099 or e-mail Elizabeth.VoorheesFREEMississippi.