Trends in Campus Safety: Are our kids really safe?

It is possible to be a student for four years at the University of Kansas without venturing far from campus. The city of Lawrence is known for its cultural opportunities, variety in restaurants, great coffee houses and shopping; but with a university campus covering approximately 950 contiguous acres of land, many students will graduate from the university each year without ever getting much of a feel for the town itself.

The University of Kansas—26,000 students—is a typical representation of schools this size. The campus is somewhat self-contained, especially if you are a student attending classes, as well as living and working on campus. This phenomenon is even greater at schools such as the University of Maryland in College Park or the University of California in Los Angeles where campuses offer everything from housing and recreation to full service police stations and fire departments.

Smaller universities and community colleges, however, are also often semi-isolated from the general public, including public services and protective measures. Schools have traditionally been viewed as meccas of academic growth and personal enrichment, not potential liabilities vulnerable to attack. Gone are the days, however, when severe weather shelters and fire drills were adequate measures of keeping student populations safe.

The Virginia Tech tragedy in April 2007, resulting in the deaths of 32 people, highlighted the need for a more comprehensive approach to safety on college campuses. The event has prompted universities across the nation to evaluate their campuses in terms of security and the ability to respond in the face of disaster. According to the Post Virginia Tech Study, by Campus Safety, 66% of college campuses have revised their campus safety plans in the last year and 22% of college campuses are in the process of reviewing them.

One such effort was led by Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin. Drawing on examples from state and national law enforcement agencies and the best practices of campuses across the nation, the Wisconsin Governor’s Taskforce for Campus Safety outlined four categories for the review of current procedures and adoption of new procedures regarding safety. Wisconsin focused their report on the areas of prevention, intervention, response, and post event activities.

Increasing the safety of students on college campuses, however, has been a subject of greater focus for some time now. Efforts at the University of Kansas, for instance, have resulted in a decade-long decline in the number of crimes reported on campus. The current crime rate is nearly half of that reported in 1997 with a 10 percent drop in the past year alone. Property crimes continue to be the greatest threat. The University of Kansas installed a closed-circuit camera system in 2005 which now monitors all parking lots and public areas surrounding the residence halls.

The greatest change reported in the year since the Virginia Tech Tragedy, according to the CS Post Virginia Tech Study, is in methods and directives for communication on campuses during threats to student safety. Seventy-three percent of campuses have purchased or are planning to purchase mass notification systems, making this the top measure for improved safety on campuses across the nation. These systems are designed to send a single message by every means possible. One such service lists mobile phone (via SMS text message), landline phone (via text-to-voice phone call), Blackberry, wireless PDA, text pager, school email accounts, personal e-mail accounts, school Web page (via Bulletin Board feature), personal portal (My Yahoo, iGoogle or My AOL page), RSS reader, digital signage throughout campus, alert beacons throughout campus, loudspeakers throughout campus, and public address or PA systems throughout campus.

What is being emphasized, however, is that simply creating plans for potential emergency is not enough. Effective safety measures involve the ongoing communication and practice of those emergency procedures. The Wisconsin Taskforce Report states that, “Sustained marketing and ongoing communication are crucial to educate students and staff on emergency procedures. While new threats are identified and the campus community continues to turnover, communication strategies will have to follow these changes.”

Another aspect of campus safety that is under heavy scrutiny is the method of accessing and reporting at-risk individuals. Privacy issues are being reviewed by legislators nation-wide in regard to mental health evaluation and treatment measures. In hindsight, it is easy to see the patterns of behavior in gunmen such as Cho Seung-Hui of Virginia Tech and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of the Columbine High School shootings as signs of potential violence. However, mental health professionals such as Dr. Jeff Victoroff, an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California and expert on human aggression, will attest to the fact that warning signs such as these are common in adolescent behavior and not an absolute indicator that violence is eminent. The majority of people who suffer from mental illness or paranoia do not commit violent acts.

The Wisconsin Taskforce Report urges campuses to plan for everything from the common to the unthinkable. The “it wouldn’t happen here” syndrome remains the largest hurdle for safety on campuses nation-wide. While safety personnel and police departments are likely to think in terms of reacting when violence occurs, the general population—students included—has a tendency to view themselves immune. Evidence suggests that campuses are, indeed, safer than they were a decade ago, but examples such as Virginia Tech illustrate just how vulnerable an open college campus can be.

Ensuring the safety of students on campus is a project of multiple avenues and efforts, none 100% effective on their own, but all beneficial with ongoing work and room for improvement. As in Wisconsin’s approach, campus safety issues need to be continually readdressed with an eye on everything from common problems such as stolen backpacks to the most extreme instances of violence and danger. Dynamic student and faculty populations need to be kept current on methods of prevention and response through ongoing safety education programs. Technologies such as the mass communication systems now being utilized by many campuses and surveillance tools such as the cameras that have contributed to the University of Kansas decline in property crimes are going to continue to be worthy investments. For those in decision making positions, the job is to overcome the tendency to wait until a “perfect” solution is found. As Doyle writes in Wisconsin’s report, “Threats to the security of our schools are complex and always changing, but we must constantly work to update our readiness.”