Board of Regents official urges colleges to prepare communications 'bunker' and verify facts before wide release
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Summary
In a Louisiana Board of Regents podcast recorded after a winter storm, Chris Yandell, associate commissioner for strategic communications, urged campuses to maintain living crisis plans, name a small decision team, verify facts before distribution and use templates and inter-system coordination to reduce rumor and maintain trust.
Chris Yandell, associate commissioner for strategic communications at the Louisiana Board of Regents, told a recorded podcast that colleges should plan for crises and centralize messaging to preserve trust. "We're all gonna have a crisis. It's not a matter of if, but when," Yandell said, urging campuses to prepare a small decision team or "bunker" made up of communications, leadership, public safety, facilities and academic officers.
Yandell described the difference between risk — predictable events such as hurricanes — and crisis events like an active shooter, and said institutions should plan for both. He recommended that initial communications follow journalistic standards (who, what, when, where, why and how) and that teams verify core facts before issuing broad statements to avoid long-term credibility damage. "You have to be quick, but you wanna be right," he said.
The podcast addressed a practical tension communicators often face: the Clery Act requires certain immediate notifications under federal law, even while communicators seek to verify facts. Yandell advised telling stakeholders what is known and what remains under investigation rather than promising a fixed time for updates. "Never promise a time," he said, because unmet time promises can erode public trust.
Yandell also warned that silence creates a vacuum that fuels rumors and misinformation. He recommended acknowledging that an event occurred and committing to follow up when more verified information is available, rather than staying silent while facts are collected. He described using standardized message templates (for closures, remote instruction and facilities issues) to speed accurate communications during incidents.
On operational coordination, Yandell said the Board of Regents collects closure and status information from the communications heads of Louisiana's public systems and lists daily closures on an emergency communications page. He noted that during the recent winter storm all 32 of the state's public degree-granting institutions were closed or operating remotely at some point, and that the recording followed five days of storm-related communications.
The podcast also covered who should be the public face after different kinds of incidents: for many events, the president or chancellor or a designated communications officer will lead messaging; in public-safety incidents an on-scene public-safety officer may be the appropriate initial spokesperson because of subject-matter expertise. For memorials and anniversaries, Yandell recommended planning speakers carefully, respecting families and coordinating media involvement.
Yandell recommended building inter-institution relationships during 'blue-sky' periods so that teams can rely on one another during crises, and he described an 18-month communications timeline that moves from immediate response and memorials into later phases of questioning where boards or legislatures may request testimony. The podcast closes with a training contact for institutions seeking further assistance.
Contact information provided at the end of the recording: highered@ncbrt.lsu.edu.
