Improving campus safety and security does factor in their enrolment decisions

For many prospective college students, campus safety and security do factor in their enrolment decisions. Reportedly up to 38 percent of students said it was a consideration when applying.

Awareness about student safety experiences and perspectives can drive higher ed institutions’ efforts related to safety and security spending as well as creating a culture where students—even those who don’t enter college with trust in the police—feel they can turn to the professionals focused on keeping them safe.

The following are six approaches and actions to consider:

1. Be Transparent About Data and Policy
Provide an annual safety report with statistics of campus crime and efforts taken to improve safety, as well as a daily crime log; policies about concealed weapons, officer investigations and victim/witness assistance; the campus safety training curriculum taken by student organizations and athletes; lists of recent campus safety efforts and planned ones; and more.

2. Help Make the Area Around Campus Safer
Institutions whose campuses are surrounded by neighbourhoods with high crime shouldn’t think of the challenge as keeping students safe from those in the community, they should consider what they you doing as a campus to make the community safer. Some universities launch grant programs to give landlords of nearby private residences funding for security cameras and better lighting. Others have partnered with local entities on pedestrian safety and rail safety.

3. Cultivate Relationships Between Campus Security and Students
While students often have a great deal of trust in their campus safety and security staff, that dips to fewer than one in four LGBTQIA+ students and fewer than one in five students who had negative interactions with police before college. Holding a drop-in event where students can get to know campus safety officers is one way to build rapport. Campus officials could also organize a town hall meeting so students could discuss their own experiences with city police officers. Expanding and ensuring more diversity in security staff, can also be good steps in building a more inclusive security force.

4. Add Visible Security, and More Visibility, to Campus Walkways
Often seeing safety deterrents and improving visibility across walkways and surrounding areas are an important part of ensuring students feel safe. While many officials consider emergency blue-light boxes antiquated, they do serve as visible signs to some current and prospective students (and families) that help can be called quickly to a precise location.

5. Ensure a Connection Between Campus Safety and Mental Health Awareness
Although not an off-the-shelf solution to preventing crime, the expansion of mental health support to prevent incidents is a top priority. Providing safety officers with de-escalation training, as well as ensuring a counsellor is always on call, are musts. Mental health is not a law enforcement duty, and officers must be equipped to respond to incidents involving students with mental health issues.

How can locate global help?
The Locate app provides a direct connection to the university’s security response team so that any user can easily communicate their safety needs. Packed with easy-to-use features, it helps students, studying or living on-site, as well as campus staff and security personnel to stay safe throughout their day.

• School administration staff can gather crowd-sourced intelligence, increasing situational awareness across different campuses.
• Instigate direct communications with security response teams through our 2-way chat features.
• Create zones to automatically warn students via the app when they have entered a potentially dangerous area, preventing emergency incidents.
• Students can virtually “walk” their friends to a destination by monitoring their location on a real-time map.
• Security teams can receive Geo-tagged reports with text and photographic evidence attached, highlighting safety concerns or emerging incidents.
• In the event of a serious incident, such as an active-shooter on campus, the university can use the cloud-based dashboard to send mass communications out to its thousands of students via SMS, push notifications or email.

To speak to a member of our team, or to book a demo, contact us at info@locate.global or call +44 (0) 208 057 6402.