Tabletop Exercises and Examples for Faculty

Sudden Death of a Student

This Tabletop Exercise, along with additional information and forms, can be found in PDF format here.

Exercise

Exercise Objectives

This exercise was developed to focus on the following objectives:

  • Identify resources that can assist other students cope with the loss of a student,
  • Identify the objective harm the loss of any individual student could cause to the research, and
  • Develop processes and procedures to ensure that if a loss of life should occur, that grieving is the primary concern.

Incident Notification

You are sitting in your office when you receive a phone call from campus police. Immediately, you pick up the phone. A calm voice on the other end informs you that your graduate student, , died in a car accident off campus last night (Feel free to choose a specific students’ name, and repeat for each student you have, as the answers may change). You are stunned.

Inject #1

About 20 minutes after the phone call another student from the lab comes into your office. One of their questions is if you have heard from the student, as they were expecting them to be in by now. You know that you will need to let the other members of your lab know about the student’s passing.

Based on the information introduced in Inject #1, discuss potential issues and key concepts that arise from this Inject. Then, identify additional decisions, communication flows, questions, and/or resources that would need to be addressed. The questions below are provided to help guide the discussion around general key points. However, these questions are not intended to define a rigid list of concerns that need to be addressed, nor will all of them be applicable to your individual situation.

  1. What procedure, if any, are you required to follow to inform the members of the lab of the student’s passing? What resources are available on campus to help students that are grieving? Is it possible, or are you required to, have them be present when you inform the group? How can you contact them?
  2. Do you have the ability to authorize bereavement leave? Does it make sense to suspend work for a fixed amount of time to facilitate mourning? If not, what options exist to lower the overall burden on the members of the lab?
  3. Are you required to provide a standard statement for those looking to reach the deceased student? If so, what language are you required to have? Will all lab members be able to respond, and if so how will you provide them with the statement?
  4. Who should you contact, if anyone, within your group, department, institution, etc., to bring this situation to their attention? Is there any coordination that they would expect from you?
  5. Do you have any obligations to report the students passing to your institution by law or policy? If so, who would you need to contact?

Inject #2

The next day a student working on a research project comes to ask you about what to do with the deceased student’s belongings. They need to access items at the student’s work station.

Based on the information introduced in Inject #2, discuss potential issues and key concepts that arise from this Inject. Then, identify additional decisions, communication flows, questions, and/or resources that would need to be addressed. The questions below are provided to help guide the discussion around general key points. However, these questions are not intended to define a rigid list of concerns that need to be addressed, nor will all of them be applicable to your individual situation.

  1. What policy, procedure, or laws are you required to follow in securing the student’s physical belongings? Who do you need to contact about this?
  2. What policy, procedure, or laws are you required to follow in securing the student’s digital assets? Do these responsibilities change between central IT, distributed IT, or local files in a lab or institute shared storage? Who do you need to contact about this?
  3. Who is allowed, if anyone, to access the physical belongings of the student? Are you required to deny access to the student’s work space? If this is in a shared space, what requirements do you have in preventing access?
  4. After the student’s passing, who will collect the student’s physical access credentials, such as keys or access cards? Are you required to have locks or other physical access controls changed? If so, who do you need to contact about this?

Inject #3

If prior to starting this table top exercise, you had a cross- training, documentation, and research continuity plan for the student in question, you may skip this section. After the student has been laid to rest according to their religious or secular customs, you have to sort out who will carry on their tasks. You have to balance the emotions of the remaining lab members while also ensuring continuity of research.

Based on the information introduced in Inject #3, discuss potential issues and key concepts that arise from this Inject. Then, identify additional decisions, communication flows, questions, and/or resources that would need to be addressed. The questions below are provided to help guide the discussion around general key points. However, these questions are not intended to define a rigid list of concerns that need to be addressed, nor will all of them be applicable to your individual situation.

  1. Who in the lab has the same skill sets and abilities as the deceased student? What documentation, if any, created by that student that can be used to move forward?
  2. If you have the funding to bring in another lab member to replace the deceased student, what is required for this? Are there any applicable laws or policies that dictate how long to wait before replacing the deceased student’s position? Even if there are none, how long should you wait?
  3. What grants, projects, papers, academic assignments (RA,TA), etc., if any, was the student participating in? What obligation do you have, if any, to replace their workload or contributions? What is time frame?
  4. Was the student receiving any communications that need to be updated to go to a new lab member? If so, which communications and who will need to receive them? Who do you need to contact, internally or externally, to make these updates?

Hot Wash

Questions to Consider

  • Based on your discussions, what should happen in a best case scenario?
  • Based on your discussions, what would happen if this event took place tomorrow?
  • Having both of these discussions in mind, what difference exists between your current preparedness level and the best case preparedness level?
  • Having completed the exercise, what went well that you would continue in the future? In what areas were you unprepared? What would you stop doing to improve your outcome? What can you start doing today to improve your outcome in a future exercise or real event?
  • If you did not have a plan for this situation, what are your action items and timeline to create one? If you did have a plan, what are your action items and timeline to update it?
  • When will we conduct this exercise again?