Is That College Safe?

Some thoughts on campus safety and good questions to ask

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

“So, do you think it’s still safe for my daughter to go to college in Minnesota?”

I was taking a break from doom scrolling about the current ICE invasion of my beloved state when I saw the above message in a DM from a friend of a friend. The mom who wrote it lives 1000 miles away from Minnesota and has a daughter who is excited to become a Golden Gopher in the fall. She’d been doom scrolling too, seeing the same videos of uniformed officers throwing teenagers to the ground. Her baseline level of anxiety about her baby moving across the country started to spike, now that there was a real safety threat showing up on the nightly news.

While her concern was, in this incidence, tied to a specific kind of danger, she was asking a question that a lot of parents have when it comes to their kid choosing a school: is that college safe?

This is obviously a valid question and there are some resources (we’ll get to those in a minute) that parents can use to try to do a little risk assessment for the school on their student’s list. That said, answering it also has to start with the caveat that no school, no matter how well-funded they are or how many security protocols they have in place, can ever 100% guarantee student safety.

This is, unfortunately, a reality that kids who’ve been doing active shooter drills since they were in kindergarten are already familiar with.

Before we get into questions to ask and resources to use to assess campus safety, here are some things to keep in mind:

• How are you defining “safety”? Are your safety concerns primarily about physical safety and sexual violence or are you also wondering about property theft? Are you primarily concerned about safety from crime committed by other students and/or that happens on campus only or crime rates in the larger community around the school? Does safety include considerations about student behavior around drinking and substance use? There isn’t a right answer here, but defining your concerns will help you know made kind of data or resources you might be looking for.

• Geography matters: College campuses are generally porous, without a single defined entry and exit point. This means that there is almost always open public access to any given campus (though generally not to all campus buildings), so when you start looking at crime statistics or considering risks, you should expect that colleges in more populated or geographically dense areas are almost certainly going to have higher levels of property crimes, though not necessarily crimes committed by one student against another.

• School type matters: Residential campuses will often have higher levels reported of certain types of crimes than non-residential campuses. Typically we’ll expect to see higher reports of sexual violence and drinking violations at schools with a residential population. This doesn’t mean that the students attending those schools are more violent or drinking more than other students… it’s just more likely that those incidents are occurring in the places where students live and off-campus stuff may or may not be reported as often.

• Every college is at risk for a school shooting: I can say with 99.87% certainty that every college and university has done some level of risk assessment and crisis planning around how they would respond to a campus shooting. When I worked on campuses and was part of the crisis and emergency planning teams, campus shootings were always a scenario we planned for and always one of the major risks we identified. And while there are things that might help reduce the risk (mental health resources, alert systems that flag warning signs, communications systems that can notify a campus quickly of a threat, physical infrastructure that can lock down buildings quickly, etc), the truth is that we live in a country with far too much access to the kinds of guns that making mass shootings possible. No college or university can honestly say “it could never happen here”.

Okay, on that fun note… let’s talk about what kinds of questions you can ask to get a better sense of campus safety at a particular school and where to find data about campus crime.

We’ll start with the data first. Colleges and universities are required to submit data to the federal government every year about reported incidents of crime through the Clery Act. The Clery Act requires that colleges and universities report on criminal offenses (including murder, sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery, arson, burglary, and car theft), hazing, hate crimes, VAWA crimes (including stalking and domestic violence), and disciplinary actions (like drug and liquor law violations). Colleges are expected to report on any qualifying incidences that happen on-campus, in campus housing, public property within or near campus bounds, and buildings that are off campus but institutionally affiliated, so it’s important to remember that not every incident reported necessarily involved a student.

Clery Act reports are public information, so you can search for the most recent Clery report for colleges and universities on your list here. Schools also generally have links to their Clery reports on their websites, so you can do a search for “school name + Clery” and you’ll likely find a link. On the Cleary report, you’ll also be able to tell who completed the report as well as their contact info, so if you find something that concerns you or raises questions, that person can be a good point of contact.

The school’s website might also be a good starting place for some of the following questions, which might help you get a better sense of campus safety standards at a school:

• How is access to residence halls controlled? Can all students access all residences halls or only the ones they live in? Ideally a school will have restricted access (usually with key cards), a staffed desk in the lobby, and security cameras in public areas/elevators.

• Are firearms allowed on campus? If so, under which conditions? Are they allowed in residence halls, classrooms, or other campus buildings? I would personally have a VERY hard time with my child attending a college that allowed for open or concealed carry on campus, but some campuses may not have options about their policies, depending on applicable state laws.

• Does the college have campus safety officers? Are they on duty 24/7? Are they licensed law enforcement officers (more common on larger campuses, which may have a full police force) or unarmed security personnel?

• Are there options for after dark rides/escorts for students who don’t want to walk alone on campus?

• Are there emergency phones present and, if so, where do emergency calls get directed to?

• Is Narcan/naloxone available on campus? How would a student access it, if so? Is it available after normal business hours (only having it in a health center that closes at 5pm probably isn’t going to be helpful in an emergency)

• Does the school offer an online and anonymous (if desired) way to report crimes?

• How would a student be alerted to an emergency on campus? Many schools will have some sort of app or text alert option, but some times students need to opt in, so you’ll want to make sure they’ve opted in if so.

• What is your campus policy on drug or alcohol violations? Are incidents turned over to local law enforcement? Is it treated as a code of conduct violation? What are the possible sanctions?

The other side of the campus safety conversation is also making sure that your kid practices common sense and understands how to keep themselves and their stuff safe, so it’s not a bad idea to make sure to talk to them about things like:

• Never leave your laptop, backpack/purse, wallet, phone, or keys unattended ANYWHERE beside their room on campus.

• If you are going out at night, make sure nobody walks home alone and consider sharing location information with campus friends so someone knows where you are

• Have a secure, low visibility space in your dorm room to store your wallet, important documents (like passports/IDs), extra cash, medications that others might want. If people come into your room, it shouldn’t be easy to spot where valuable items that are easy to put in a pocket are stored

• Practice safer drinking practices - make sure there is a sober driver, don’t leave drinks unattended, don’t binge drink, don’t leave someone unattended if they are blacked out or too drunk to make safe choices. Don’t hook up with intoxicated people, even if you are sober (intoxicated people can’t always give consent)

• Don’t let people tailgate you into the residence hall if they don’t have a keycard for access

A final note: given the current political climate, it’s probably not a bad idea to also talk about how to protest safely and how to interact with law enforcement or ICE if they are present in your community.

I’ll end on a bit of good news: while no campus can fully guarantee safety, the biggest safety risks for most students is much more likely to be property theft and alcohol/drug violations than violent crime.

And, yes, I’d still tell a prospective student to come to Minnesota.