When campus safety officials proposed a Jan. 1, 2007, date for completing an avian flu response plan, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw said that was not soon enough.

Hinshaw, of course, knows what the world is up against as it braces for an avian influenza pandemic. She is a scientist, an expert in viral diseases — particularly influenza in humans, lower mammals and birds.

So, emergency planners moved up the response plan's completion date to Sept. 1. "It's a very ambitious timeline," Valerie Lucus, the campus's emergency manager, told the University Communications Council earlier this month.

On April 13, Lucus delivered planning guides to all deans and vice chancellors. In an accompanying letter, Hinshaw wrote: "The threat of a global pandemic is always present, but appears to be a greater risk today because of the events surrounding the spread of the H5N1 virus in domestic and wild birds around the world.

"It is important for us to seriously review the impacts this event could have on our classrooms, research facilities, business offices, public events, visitors and community, and develop plans that will allow us to continue our primary missions of education and research.

"We take this threat of an avian flu pandemic very seriously."

Lucus said last week that deans and vice chancellors were acting fast to appoint work groups to conduct detailed planning for their individual units.

"The deans and vice chancellors are taking this very seriously, as we all should," she said.

Jill Blackwelder, assistant vice chancellor for Safety Services, said: "We have gotten a terrific response from this campus. Everyone is committed to doing their part."

Will the plan be finished on time? "Absolutely," she said.

— Dave Jones