The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with the University of Virginia, convened a Regional Tabletop Exercise for Institutions of Higher Education (RTTX) on June 11, 2018 in Charlottesville, Va.
The event brought together more than 125 participants representing 33 colleges and universities from the Charlottesville area, including institutions from Maryland, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia. The 2018 Charlottesville RTTX focused on a soft target incident, specifically campus unrest caused by a controversial speaker.
Virginia Homeland Security Advisor Brian Moran delivered keynote remarks alongside University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan. Participants also included representatives from federal, state, and local departments and agencies that support campus resilience.
“We at the Department recognize the importance of fostering resilience best practices and bolstering campus emergency preparedness efforts,” said Executive Director for Academic Engagement Trent Frazier. “The RTTX offers an opportunity for institutions of higher education to experience those efforts in action.”
Building upon the success of the National Seminar and Tabletop Exercise (NTTX), the regional events are hosted multiple times per year, focusing on a risk or threat(s) specific to institutions within a geographic region. The one-day event explores and tests campus resilience and emergency preparedness efforts of the participating colleges and universities through a moderated exercise scenario and an after-action session.
The RTTX is part of the DHS Office of Academic Engagement’s Campus Resilience Program Tabletop Exercise Series (TTX), which is a collection of tailored events, each with unique objectives and outcomes, designed for the higher education community. Each event in the series challenges participants with multi-faceted threat based scenarios that test and strengthen their institution’s preparedness, response, and recovery capabilities.
To learn more about the RTTX and access previous RTTX event materials, visit: https://www.dhs.gov/rttx.