Oklahoma State University's COVID-19 Incident Management Team Operations

About the Collection

The Oklahoma State University COVID-19 Incident Management Team oral history project documents the operations of Oklahoma State University’s Incident Management Teams as they worked with students, staff, and faculty throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic. These interviews were conducted as a part of dissertation research for Rodney Eksteen, titled 'A critical analysis of Oklahoma State University’s short & extended duration COVID-19 incident management team operations.'

Summary of Rodney Eksteen's IMT Study

To meet the anticipated acute increase in COVID-19 demands and surge capacity, an Incident Management Team (IMT) was assembled to facilitate the ramping up of operations at the Oklahoma State University (OSU). The IMT, was quickly established, consisting of representatives from numerous colleges and departments from the OSU Stillwater campus. The IMT’s initial mission was to establish and facilitate immediate support for standing up the testing of human samples at the on-campus Oklahoma Animal Disease Diagnostics Laboratory and develop support systems to enable long-term sustained operations. In addition to the testing, a collection system to obtain samples from district health clinics across the state were to be established. Using the principles and features of the Incident Command System (ICS), the operation was completed in just over one month. Soon after the initial mission was completed, on June 5, 2020, another IMT was assembled, with a more prolonged mission - to plan, develop, implement, monitor, and maintain the requirements for the return of students, faculty, and staff to campus during the Fall semester of 2020 and beyond. This specific IMT was assembled from staff and faculty within the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology (CEAT).

Specifically, this study aims to “critically evaluate IMT stakeholder perceptions, attitudes and experiences to determine criteria for effective on-campus usage of ICS within short and extended-duration operations”.  Semi-structured qualitative interviews with key stakeholders will address command, control, and coordination across operations, planning, logistics, and financial administration functions to determine criteria for the effective utilization of ICS within on-campus environments over short and extended durations.

Purposive sampling was used to identify and invite the appropriate participants from the two IMT operations that took part in the response. More specifically, selected members of the IMT who provided the command-and-control infrastructure required to manage the logistical, financial, planning, operational, media and safety issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic response within the college using the ICS, will be evaluated. The acute stage IMT comprised of 43 staff of which 22 made up the command and general staff during the expanded organization structure. The chronic stage IMT comprised of approximately 15 staff of which 8 were command and general staff. A sample size of around 30 research participants provided sufficient data for analysis.

	IMT Response	Mobilization	Demobilization
A	Initial response (Acute Stage)	March 19, 2020	April 27, 2020
B	Extended response (Chronic Stage)	May 2020	May 30, 2021

Table 1: Time period bounding the case studies in the proposed research

The two cases identified for this study (Table 1) were, a) the initial response phase (acute stage) to stand up the animal diagnostic lab to test human samples for the coronavirus, and b) the extended phase (chronic stage) which includes the planning, preparations and monitoring of faculty, staff, and students returning to campus.

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Oklahoma Oral History Research Program
207 Edmon Low Library
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-7685
liboh@okstate.edu

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