10 Questions Every Parent, Student Should Ask About Campus Safety
University officials should be willing to answer safety concerns that worry families, experts say.
Parents and prospective students should ask questions that cover a variety of campus safety topics, from natural disaster plans to how disciplinary boards are trained.
Researching campus safety can make the cumbersome process of finding the right school even more difficult.
Colleges are required by federal law to establish standard protocols for many campus safety concerns. Parents and prospective students can look at an institution's annual security report, which should be available on the school's website, to find statistics on crime, disciplinary actions and campus safety policies.
However, families can – and should – dig deeper. Campus safety policies vary, so parents and prospective students will have to research schools and decide if they're comfortable with an institution's practices. Start by asking college officials the following 10 questions to learn more about campus safety.
[Get more expert advice on how to research campus safety.]
1. What is the college doing to cultivate a safe campus?
If parents and prospective students make campus safety a priority, it will require universities to raise their standards and make it a priority as well, experts say.
"Once there is a heightened awareness about the topic from students and prospective parents then the school is going to have a heightened awareness – and that’s what we need," says Colby Bruno, senior legal counsel at the Victim Rights Law Center.
2. How does the school communicate with students in an emergency?
Schools may use different methods, such as emails, texts, display signs on campus or sirens to alert students during an emergency. Ideally, universities should have a plan that allows them to alert students even when they’re out of cellphone or Internet range. Learn whether students need to opt in or out of notification programs and if parents are allowed to sign up for updates.
3. Are there police stationed on campus, or does the university rely on its own security team, with city or county police stations off campus?
Prospective students should know if campus safety is monitored by private security or police and how the security team coordinates with off-campus police when a crime occurs.
Campus security, whether police or private, should be trained to respond to disorder, support the fire department, provide first aid and render initial support, says Gary Margolis, managing partner at Margolis Healy and Associates, a security consulting firm that works with schools.
Students should also know if misconduct is handled through the legal system or on campus.
4. Who investigates an allegation of sexual assault or sexual harassment at the university?
"The goal is to know that the college would handle the investigation – period – and it’s important for them to know who the Title IX coordinator is and to whom a student could complain if a student had a concern," says Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education.
Students should understand how schools handle reports made online or through campus abuse hotlines. Families should also know what procedures schools have in place to provide confidentiality for the accuser and ensure the victim and the rest of the student body are safe, legal experts say.
"The key thing is to have clarity," Lhamon says. "Families should be looking for clear policies from the university and for clear statements on who to go to for help and how to find that person."
[Read more about
how to research and discuss sexual assault on college campuses.]
5. What training does the disciplinary board receive about how to conduct a sexual assault investigation?
Online training can be a faster and easier way to meet the legal requirements for sexual violence training, but in-person training is preferable, experts say.
"Investigating sexual assaults is considered one of the most challenging types of criminal investigations (along with homicides)," Shanlon Wu, a defense attorney for students charged with college conduct and criminal offenses, and partner at the Wu, Grohovsky & Whipple law firm, wrote in an email.
Parents and students should expect their schools to offer training given by former sexual assault investigators such as sexual assault prosecutors and sexual assault unit detectives, he says.
