Since the first of the 29 significant earthquakes and thousands of aftershocks that the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) community has endured in the last year, Beverly Lord has learned a few lessons as a departmental head in a university during a time of natural disaster. Herein, she organizes and describes these lessons under five "Cs": (1) check; (2) connect; (3) communicate; (4) change; and (5) coordinate.