Crisis communication: A step-by-step guide for higher education (with infographic)

Organisational crises are as unpredictable as they are guaranteed. While they are never pleasant to navigate, there is a right way and a wrong way to prepare for and respond to them. Here’s our step-by-step guide to crisis communication for your higher education institution.

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What is a crisis?

A crisis is a time of intense difficulty or danger. In higher education, a crisis can threaten the safety, reputation, operations and financial stability of your school. It can also disrupt academic continuity, damage trust among stakeholders and generate widespread negative media attention.

What is crisis communication?

Crisis communication is the process of managing and articulating information in your words – both during and after the crisis. It ensures that school representatives speak with a unified voice, give timely and accurate updates, and demonstrate accountability. 

Every higher education institution’s success is rooted in public trust. How you respond to negativity and crises shapes how people see and experience your campus culture, your recruitment, and your brand.

Why is crisis communication essential in higher education?

A crisis communication plan is (almost) as essential to a university as professors, the campus, and the finance department. Frankly, we believe it’s a non-negotiable part of well-run organisations. 

Dr. Maureen Manning, Founder of Global Nexus Collective, a global education advisory and consulting company, says:

 ‘A strong crisis communications plan does more than guide a university through a difficult moment. It creates shared understanding and reinforces the confidence that institutions need to act decisively. Winston Churchill famously said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”  A well-prepared institution recognises [a crisis] as an opportunity for building clarity, collaboration, and trust. It is not simply a response mechanism, it is a framework for resilience and sustained leadership.’

Poor crisis communication can lead to mistrust, create confusion and even worsen panic. According to a study from the International Research Institute of Disaster Science, in the COVID-19 pandemic, 47% of universities said their institution lacked a permanent or dedicated emergency management office. Meanwhile, analysis from The King’s University Edmonton emphasises that better processes for communication are key to crisis responses in higher education institutions. The study reveals that not having these processes in place can cause more chaos when a crisis does hit. 

All of that is to say that how you act before, during and after a crisis matters. Below is a summary of the steps you should be taking to ensure your crisis communication leads you to calm waters.

Before a crisis

There are some essential steps you need to take in the quiet calm, long before a crisis begins to take hold.

1. Reaffirm your university’s vision and values

The strongest foundation for crisis communication comes from very clearly knowing your university’s vision and values. These elements make up your brand, which you can think of your personality, suit of armour and litmus test of authenticity, all rolled into one. When you powerfully communicate your brand, people know exactly what you stand for – in both good and bad times.

Dr. Manning told Hubbub Labs that universities can be risk-averse in their messaging during a crisis, but these are actually the moments to promote your values without fear. The more proactive you are, the more united your response and support will be, and the more people will see you as trustworthy.

Experts recommend asking yourself:

• Can students and staff easily articulate our institution’s vision and values?
• Do our vision and values truly reflect where we are today? 
• Have these values been visible in previous crisis communication? If not, what was missing?

2. Conduct an audit across your university platforms

Aim to ensure your messaging communicates your vision and values. Review your website, marketing materials, social media and public-facing communications with a critical eye to check that your brand is coming across with consistency and authenticity. 

Solid messaging will build a foundation of trust with both your students on campus and wider community. With that foundation, you’ll be better placed to weather whatever crisis comes your way and experience more community goodwill towards your institution.

For inspiration, look to the University of Miami, where one of the values is to ‘provide service to our community and beyond’. Following Hurricane Ian in 2022, the university launched an Emergency Relief Fund programme to support faculty experiencing financial hardship. It also allowed staff to request time off work to rebuild houses and support families. 

By maintaining its values in a post-crisis initiative, the university not only provided much-needed assistance to vulnerable people but also cemented its standing as a credible and reliable institution.

For higher education leaders, crisis communication is the process of managing and articulating information during and after a crisis to protect your institution’s reputation.

3. Classify the stages of a crisis

Part of crisis preparation is to consider the type of crises that could affect your university. The objective is to create a scale that allows you to qualify the severity of a crisis. With this information, you can determine resources needed, a timeline of action and what comms to prioritise.

Generally speaking, the categories of crises in education are: safety, operational, financial, reputational and community/moral-oriented.

Common university crises

How do you classify the progression of a crisis?

Depending on the type of crisis – and factors like how many people are impacted – you can classify the stage as either:

• Internal – a crisis that is limited in scope to the immediate university community, i.e. only affecting students and/or staff.
• Public/local – a crisis that extends to your larger geographical community. 
• Public/national/international – a crisis that resonates beyond the university and its neighbours, to either national spaces or international spaces.

It’s also worth crystalising what your university’s trigger points are for each stage. For instance, higher faculty turnover rates could signal that an internal crisis is pending. A polarising event held on campus, a protest, for example, could lead to a public/local crisis. And, a news report suggesting a change in law around international student visas, for example, could prompt a national/international crisis.

With the groundwork laid for the kind of crises your university might expect, the next step is to form a crisis communication team.

4. Appoint a crisis communication team

Even experienced educators acknowledge that university comms teams are not necessarily experts in crisis communications.

That’s why you need to create a dedicated team of people who take responsibility for managing communication in crisis moments. This team will be at the helm of your crisis communication plan, which is a living document that defines exactly how your institution responds in a crisis.

The team should constantly be active and learning, even when there aren’t any crises unfolding. They should stay up-to-date with training around comms and crisis management, and review previous crisis scenarios regularly. This will allow them to evaluate what did and didn’t work in the university’s previous responses, and apply those learnings when the next crisis comes along. They need to be experts in crisis handling, so give them the tools they need to be top of their game. 

Higher education crisis management teams have to think about the type of crises that could affect the university – which they can do by creating a scale to qualify the severity of different crises.

Learn about the roles you’ll usually find in a university crisis comms team.

How do you streamline internal communications?

Once you have your team, concentrate on actions that will streamline your communications in the event of a crisis. For example:

• Create a streamlined approval process: plan how you will share comms in a timely manner while still complying with legal and institutional specifications.
• Write prepared statement templates addressing different issues: draft prepared statement copy and formats for the different crisis scenarios. 
• Compile a list of listening tools: think about which tools you’ll be using to monitor responses to your statements and overall crisis messaging (e.g. Google Alerts, Brand Watch, and Sprout Social).
• Identify your trigger points: what data will be your crisis warning signs? What metrics will outweigh others? What will lead to an automatic launch of the crisis communication plan?

Your crisis communication team has plenty to maintain before a crisis strikes, but they will be most active during a crisis. Below are the tasks they’ll be responsible for. 

During a crisis

Even though you’ve put preparatory steps in place, a crisis can still emerge out of a clear blue sky. When it arrives, here’s what you need to do. 

5. Respond immediately

Once you’re aware that you’re in a crisis – and it’s in the public domain – you have to act fast. To begin, issue a holding statement. This is a public-facing document to briefly address what’s happening while you collect more information. Your holding statement should:

• Acknowledge the incident
• Show concern for students, staff, stakeholders, and anyone affected
• Only share relevant, fact-checked information (say no more than is strictly necessary)
• Highlight your commitment to investigating further
• Assure the university community of regular updates to come
• Contact details for media enquiries

6. Fact-check and forecast

After you’ve published an initial holding statement, you and the crisis communication team have to collect information to understand the scope, nature, and potential impact of the crisis. Doing so means avoiding misinformation and spreading panic.

Identify the cause of the crisis, using both internal and external sources; make sure to verify facts through multiple channels. Then, try to determine how widespread the crisis already is, and who is (and might be) affected. Lastly, consider the long and short-term possible outcomes of the crisis on your university’s reputation, operations, and finances. 

Diverse input will give you a 360˚ view of the crisis. The more people you have fact-checking and forecasting, the more considerations you will have about the repercussions on different communities and social groups. In turn, the more informed and comprehensive your response will be.

7. Communicate internally and externally

Effective communication is essential for maintaining trust within your campus community and with external stakeholders. Your communication should be empathetic, transparent, timely, and consistent.

Inform staff about the crisis before they hear about it from other sources. Offer guidance on how to handle any questions, and set up a feedback mechanism for staff queries and suggestions.

Create direct lines of communication with key stakeholders, such as students, parents, alumni, and local authorities – tailoring messages to their specific concerns.

If the crisis affects the local community, highlight university initiatives to support the community and reinforce your values around community engagement.

For all stakeholders, be transparent but avoid speculation or releasing unverified information. Maintain a calm and professional tone without making unrealistic promises. Issue regular updates on social media, via email, and on your website to acknowledge concerns, correct misinformation, and explain what actions you’re taking currently.

Remember that people will want to know exactly what you’re doing in response to the crisis. Break down the short-term fixes that you’re implementing, and the long-term changes to policies or systems to prevent recurrence. Explain how these are being put in place, and what metrics will measure their success.

8. Manage the narrative

According to Statista, 68% of higher education institutions believe reputation management to be one of their top challenges during a crisis. Yet, these situations can actually be a moment to bolster your university’s reputation, if the messaging is clear and a genuine reflection of your values.

Be consistent and coherent: Take care to publish messages across all platforms. Prioritise talking about the root issue, the action you’re taking, and the university’s commitment to finding a resolution. A good example is the public letter from Columbia University following student protests. The text addresses how leaders will deal with discrimination and harassment on campus, and how protests and demonstrations will be managed in the future. It reinforces the values of the school and gives a straightforward breakdown of issues that caused the crisis the previous year.

Engage proactively: speak to the media and your audience online and in-person to clarify your stance. Take questions, and correct assumptions or misinterpretations. It’s also worth setting up dedicated channels for staff and students to share their questions and concerns about the crisis – you can appoint members from the crisis response team to address these. For example, the University of Cape Town launched a hotline during the COVID-19 pandemic for students to ask health-related questions. The hotline received high engagement, and as one staff member reported, the service was more than giving medical advice; it was about “being able to talk people through their fears”.

Highlight positive steps: Managing the narrative also includes progress towards resolution. Share stories or testimonials that demonstrate your strategy is working.

All these tasks ensure that your university is proactive and professional during a crisis. They will also help you in the aftermath, when you reflect on how the crisis communication team performed, and how the university can prevent similar crises in the future.

After a crisis

When the dust has settled, reflect on what happened and how effective your crisis response was. This is the time to pinpoint areas that need improvement. You’ll also see areas where you can better optimise your crisis communication management.  It will make a significant difference when the next crisis comes around.

9. Evaluate and update

Hold a debrief session soon after the crisis to discuss lessons learned and what needs to be reviewed. Pay attention to metrics like media coverage and sentiment, student and staff feedback, and upticks in online mentions and comments. If possible, conduct interviews with stakeholders or send out surveys to get detailed opinions about your handling of the situation.

With this information, and your crisis team’s feedback on efficiency, update the crisis plan accordingly. Think about what took too long to complete, what garnered negative attention, and any demographics that weren’t sufficiently represented in your university’s responses.

During the evaluation period you may want to consider community engagement schemes and marketing campaigns to repair/strengthen your university’s reputation. Even if the crisis wasn’t severe, or was navigated well by your institution, these initiatives can underline your values once more.

What are crisis communication services? 

Crisis communication services are specialised strategies and tools that help you manage and communicate well before, amidst and after crises. These services can be internal within the school (e.g. your crisis communication plan), or from third-party companies (e.g. Hubbub Labs). They help you craft messaging and coordinate communications, media relations, and stakeholder updates.

In higher education, where there are a diverse number of stakeholders, schools face complex crisis scenarios. Communicating quickly, well, and with empathy is crucial. It’s also a nuanced skill. Many schools are equipped with teams and resources to action crisis comms. However, external services can support marketers and leaders to finesse their crisis comms plans, tone of voice and distribution, and provide an external perspective on the crisis.

Crisis management teams that share press releases and timely updates with internal and external stakeholders establish a cadence of effective communication that maintains trust in a crisis.

Speak to Hubbub Labs about our crisis communication services.

A blueprint (not checklist) for crises

Crises are unpredictable by their nature – but at the same time, inevitable for most institutions. When you accept that a crisis will emerge at some point, you can create a blueprint for how to handle it. And as industry leaders note, the teams that step up and forward in crises not only defend their university, but they also place the university as a leader in inclusivity and smart, in-touch marketing campaigns.

University leaders should remember that a crisis can be a moment to bolster the university’s reputation, if the messaging is clear and a genuine reflection of its values.

There is no fixed checklist for crises, because each one has its own characteristics that require a tailored response strategy.

Still, with an informed crisis handling blueprint – knowing your university’s values, planning for crisis stages, building a solid crisis communication team – you can more easily build a robust response, designed around the crisis at hand, which builds trust among your community and safeguards your university’s reputation.