Staying Prepared on Campus: What is Radford Ready?

By: Lacey Banks

Radford University is doubling down on safety for everyone on campus: students, faculty, staff, and visitors. The university launched “Radford Ready: Plan Today. Ready Tomorrow.,” a new program that simplifies emergency prep, boosts communication, and offers quick, practical safety tools. The goal is to help Highlanders stay prepared and to make campus safer and easier to navigate in a crisis.

Taylor Childrey, the Emergency Management Specialist, describes Radford Ready as “having a plan, staying informed, and building a kit.” The program ensures that the Radford community gets their information up to date and as frequently as possible. The program also focuses on the community making a plan, knowing their emergency routes, and building a personalized kit that ensures they have enough supplies and resources to where they feel prepared for an emergency. 

Radford Ready was launched this semester, and to help boost awareness about the program, Radford Ready is presenting to University 100 classes, and they recently held a scavenger hunt during September for National Preparedness Month. 

The program educates students on the meaning of different alerts: evacuate, shelter-in-place, and secure-in-place. They present this information in University 100 classes and through social media campaigns like Prep Tip Tuesday to ensure everyone knows what to do and feels confident.

All Radford University registered students or employees currently receive Radford Alerts to provide critical safety information, but Radford Ready wants to ensure that the community signs up for the program to make sure that all information is up to date. 

Along with the campus program, Radford Ready has a website to provide available resources, how to make a plan, and a list of things that are needed to make a kit. The website also provides a preparedness guide which helps explain what to do in a number of emergencies. Radford Ready is a great resource for the university and student body. Keep your information up to date. Learn the alert actions, and build a basic kit so you’re prepared before emergencies happen. 

Visit radford.edu/emergency-management and click Radford Ready to find key items needed for safety kits and browse the preparedness guides so you can stay up to date in the event of an emergency.