The Environmental Health and Safety Office at Western Washington University was selected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for a grant to help increase the level of fire education and safety amongst college students. Our mission is to provide interesting, helpful, and specific promotional materials and programs that are accessible and informative. These programs should use innovative methods to increase students’ level of education and fire safety as well as address problems that are relevant and specific to Western students. We aim to dramatically reduce the loss of lives from fire related deaths in both on and off-campus housing by providing direct strategies for students to feel more comfortable applying fire safety knowledge to emergency situations.
Fire Safety Grant 2008-2009
The Environmental Health and Safety Department was awarded a grant to help promote the awareness of fire safety on the Campus of Western Washington University. As a part of the current marketing team we have been developing several strategies to reach student with this information in non-traditional ways.
We have spent the last few months conducting surveys, focus groups, developing e-mail newsletters, creating a website, and building a viral marketing campaign. We have focused our efforts for the end of the 2009 academic year on promoting fire safety awareness with presentations in on-campus dorms, creating and advertising a poster contest to promote our website, finalizing and launch our website, and applying for the 2009-2010 Fire Safety Grant so efforts can be continued into next year.
Cassie Jackson is a senior and a Marketing Major with a minor in Psychology. Cassie is part of the marketing team for the Environmental Health and Safety Office’s Fire Safety Grant Program and collaborates with Ashley and Brendan to help implement fire safety information to students.
Ashley Zender is graduate student studying to get her MBA and has her undergraduate degree in Finance. Ashley works collaboratively on the various marketing and research aspects of the Fire Safety Grant Research Project.
Jesse Bibee is a senior and a Management Information Systems major. Jesse is also working to complete the Certificate in Internet Studies. He collaborates with Cassie and Ashley to incorporate the content into the website and works closely with Brendan in the design and graphical side of the website.
Brendan Fagan is a sophomore majoring in Graphic Design with a minor in Journalism. His projects aim to take the crucial information garnered by the Ashley and Cassie and present it in an accessible and visually stimulating manner.