Currently viewing the category:
"Campus Safety"
Being a student with a physical disability on-campus can be a very difficult experience. Without proper accommodations, many physically disabled students may find it difficult to perform basic tasks needed to effectively complete their studies. An obvious example illustrates this point — if there are no ramps or elevators on-campus then people who are wheelchair-bound will unable to freely move about about and attend their classes.
Students may not feel safe at school when their basic needs aren’t considered. Therefore when designing new buildings and contemplating updates to older structures, schools should ensure that they consider accessibility standards so that people with physical disabilities have a way to enjoy their education and environment, just like any other student. In fact it is a moral imperative to ensure that all students feel safe at school and have an equal opportunity to learn and attend their classes. Thus, in order to preserve this equality, universities should provide accommodations that guarantees every student has equal access to its campus facilities.
Consequently, not only are these accommodations for persons with physical disabilities the ethical and right decision, but they are also mandated by federal law. Specifically the American Disabilities Act (ADA) signed into law in 1990, mandates that both public and private institutions, including colleges, must provide students with access to their facilities. In regards to Universities the law states that
“Any person that offers examinations or courses related to applications, licensing, certification, or credentialing for secondary or postsecondary education, professional, or trade purposes shall offer such examinations or courses in a place and manner accessible to persons with disabilities or offer alternative accessible arrangements for such individuals.”
To ensure that their schools comply with the American Disability Act, universities must implement the most effective technological solutions which can make their campus accessible for disabled students. Likewise, Guardly a personal safety application for smartphones, can help colleges keep their campuses in-compliance with the ADA. Specifically, should a disabled student experience difficulty accessing their campus, they can use Guardly to send off an alert to campus security and a custom group of contacts and request help. When an alert is sent the student’s GPS location is displayed and the student can communicate with their contacts through call conferencing instant messaging, and SMS.
Not only does Guardly’s core functionality improve accessibility on campus, but its features have been designed to accommodate people with physical disabilities. Specifically, Guardly’s developers realized that it was of the utmost importance to ensure that persons with disabilities could fully use the application. Therefore, Guardly’s features have been have carefully developed in order to comply with guidelines set out by the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). These guidelines provide a rubric for companies to follow, in order to make their products accessible for disabled persons. An example of how Guardly for iPhone and Android meets these guidelines, is illustrated in its integration of Instant Messaging and SMS into the core functionality of the application. Specifically section 1194.31 (E) of the VPAT, states that “at least one mode of operation and information retrieval that does not require user speech shall be provided, or support for Assistive Technology used by people with disabilities shall be provided.” Guardly surpasses this requirement, by allowing its users to employ private and secure instant messaging to communicate with their contacts. Therefore, someone who is hard-of-hearing may experience an emergency on-campus and can use Guardly to notify and communicate with their campus police until a police officer, guard or paramedic arrives to assist them. By using Guardly Safe Campus and its mobile apps, which meet VPAT guidelines, schools can make their campuses more accessible for students with disabilities, helping them feel much more safe at school.
Related Posts:
On April 16, 2007 the Virginia Tech University experienced one of the worst school massacres in North American history, when Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, killed 32 students and staff and left an additional 17 wounded. Unfortunately, much of the carnage perpetrated by Cho, could have been prevented had the university and campus security notified the student body sooner. This is because the attacks on Virginia Tech were carried out in two stages. At 9:24 am, Cho murdered two students in Virginia Tech’s residence hall and two hours and twenty minutes later Cho killed another 30 people. Consequently, after the first two murders, the university waited a full two hours before employing their Emergency Notification System in order to alert students of the shooting that had just occurred. This emergency notification was sent too late, as 20 minutes later, 30 more students were killed. Furthermore, the content of the emergency notification that was sent out to students lacked clarity and did not emphasize the urgency of the situation. Specifically the message sent out to students only stated that there had been a shooting and did not specify that those shot were murdered and that the killer had not been identified.
As a result of the incompetence of the Virginia Tech’s administration, which failed to prevent or mitigate the severity of this attack, they were forced to pay the victims’ families $3.7 million in a lawsuit settlement. Furthermore, these financial costs are only a fraction of the total amount spent by Virginia Tech on improved security and renovations, counselling services, and a public relations campaign. The total financial cost, according to the Washington Post, amounted to $42.8 million. Obviously, the financial cost cannot be compared to the human cost of this tragedy and the suffering and destruction of human life that occurred. However, it is important to factor all the costs related to this type of attack when universities implement risk management strategies in order to reduce the chances of this type of tragedy from occurring on their campuses.
Consequently, while Virginia Tech has spent millions in an attempt to provide some form of compensation for the victims and their families and improve campus security so that this type of attack does not happen again, no amount of money can be enough to compensate for the loss of life and repair Virginia Tech’s damaged public image. The loss of reputation that Virginia Tech suffered as a result of the shooting cannot be gauged through simple utilitarian calculations. Specifically, Virginia Tech is equated, in the eyes of many, with feelings of danger and fear and thus the massacre has immeasurably damaged the Virginia Tech public image. An example of how deeply the Virginia Tech reputation has been damaged is the type of content that surfaces on Google related to Virginia Tech. Specifically, when a user searches for Virginia Tech, the Wikipedia entry of the massacre is one of the first few links. This of course is just one of the thousands of articles online which give the perception that Virginia Tech is dangerous. If further research is conducted, it becomes clear that not only are these damaging articles prominently surfacing when people search for Virginia Tech online, but that hundreds of thousands of people every month are searching on Google for information related to the Virginia Tech massacre. For example, Google’s keyword tool which estimates monthly traffic volumes for a given search query shows that 135,000 people search for the term “Virginia Tech shooting” each month.
Most universities which have not had a massacre on campus of this scale and do not have this type of damaging content online nor do they have to worry about people searching for information about a terrible event in its history. Thus, Virginia Tech’s damaged reputation, the severe financial loss and most importantly the destruction of human life should be motivators to any school administrator to implement effective risk management strategies in order to prevent an attack like this from occurring on their campuses. When developing optimal risk management strategies that can reduce violent attacks on campus, it is important that universities employ the most effective security protocols and integrate cutting-edge technology into their Emergency Mass Notification Systems. Having both protocols that allow campus security staff to completely respond to emergencies and technology which allows for complex interactions between students, staff and security, can prevent another Virginia Tech-like attack from occurring.
Our company, Guardly, is deeply aware of these challenges that schools face and has developed its Safe Campus program to deliver an end-to-end solution for students and campus police to broadcast, respond and manage, and resolve emergencies quickly and efficiently on campus. Guardly is a mobile application which effectively turns your student’s smartphone into an emergency blue light phone. Using Guardly on your campus allows your students to immediately notify your campus security services and a custom group of contacts should an emergency occur. For example, in the instance of a Virginia Tech-like attack on campus, students and staff using Guardly’s GPS and location-aware technology can immediately notify campus police and a custom group of contacts with their exact location. Further, students or staff who experience an emergency can communicate with campus police and their contacts by phone call and secure instant messaging, allowing what could be dangerous situations to be easily conveyed. Using Guardly on campus can both improve the response time of first-responders and increase the quality of communication between students, staff and security personnel during these emergencies. Guardly Safe Campus can assist in mitigating the impact of an attack against human life on campus, helping to reduce both the human and financial costs which come as a result of such horrific attacks.
Related Posts:
Walk Safe programs on campus can drastically improve in school safety for your students. Many schools maintain some form of Walk Safe program; Harvard University being a good example of a school that has implemented an exemplary walk safe program. These programs allow any student, staff member or campus visitor to contact a program volunteer or security officer who will escort them to their vehicle, class, residence, or any other place on campus.
While campus security can help manage these programs, many of them are in fact run by student and staff volunteers. For example, Guelph University’s campus Safe Walk services allows students to sign up to volunteer through its website. The fact that many of these Walk Safe programs are staffed exclusively by volunteers from the campus community, ensures that they will be extremely sensitive to the needs of both students and staff. McGill’s Walk Safe service is a good example of a volunteer-staffed program that caters directly to the needs of students and staff. McGill’s Walk Safe program pledges that if a female student or staff member need assistance they they will do their best to dispatch a female volunteer. By sending volunteers who are of the same gender, McGill’s Walk Safe program can efficiently address gender-specific issues a student may experience on campus, such as domestic abuse.
While these Walk Safe programs can dramatically help improve campus safety there are areas where these programs could be improved. One example of how Safe-Walk programs can improve their efficiency, is by increasing the number hours which these programs operate. For example, some Walk Safe programs do not operate 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and end slightly after midnight. Other Safe Walk services do not operate during exam periods and over summer semesters. The main reason often cited for this lack of service is that the student volunteers are unable to commit to unpaid work during these off-hours. However, the problem with this is that emergencies can always occur regardless of the time of day or year. As a safety audit by York University asserts, a university campus can be dangerous at very late hours such as after campus pub nights or parties.
To address this problem, some universities such as the University of Calgary have implemented a 24 hour walk-safe program, while others, such as Queens provide security officers to escort students during a Walk Safe programs off hours. Both of these schools set great examples of how all Walk Safe programs should be structured. Walk Safe programs need both significant amount of funding and student interest in order to function effectively.
Another problem with many campus Walk Safe programs is that they are often underutilized by the student body. Specifically awareness of these Walk Safe programs are limited on many university campuses. In the safety audit conducted by York University only 60% of students and staff were aware of their Walk Safe program. That number is quite low, considering the value of this possibly life-saving service which clearly helps maintain and improve in school safety . Thus, Safe Walk services need to be more vigorously promoted within the student body.
There are many different strategies that can be used to promote a school’s Walk Safe program. Having an informative website to both promote and provide information about your schools Safe Walk services should be considered essential. For example, the Walk Safe program for Colorado State University provides students with a schedule with hours they can be escorted, relevant contact information and a map with the boundaries where the Safe-walk program operates. While, having a website is extremely important in keeping students up to date on a schools Safe Walk services, maintaining a presence on social media could also significantly help your school build awareness of it Walk Safe program. This is because the usage of social media among college students is very high and therefore building a relationships with students on web properties which they frequently use can significantly help promote your Safe Walk services. Likewise, the University of Minnesota Duluth uses this social media strategy, which should be mimicked by other campuses and has a Walk Safe program Facebook group which they use to communicate with the student body.
Besides the minimal awareness issues of Walk Safe programs among students and lack availability of Safe Walk volunteers, a serious problem with most Walk Safe programs is the relatively outdated communication technologies used by students and Walk Safe program staff. Specifically, students or staff, who need to use these Walk Safe programs, can generally contact a program volunteer through a campus emergency phone, pay phone or in some cases even their own mobile phone. Breakthroughs in mobile related technologies such as location-based GPS features and instant messaging can be used by Safe Walk Programs to foster in school safety.
Despite the different areas where is definitely room for improvement, Walk-Safe programs are one of the most important tools that can be used to improve and maintain a safe campus.
Related Posts:
When you enter university it is important that you always remain safe at school. We’ve composed 25 college safety tips which you can help keep you safe on campus .
1. Do not under any circumstances drink and drive, or enter a vehicle where the driver is drunk. In 2009 there were 10,839 fatalities as a result of drunk driving in the United States.
You can help keep yourself and your friends safe at school by volunteering to be a designated driver should your friends plan to drink. Doing this will help improve in school safety for the people you care about. At college parties know your limit and drink responsibly. Don’t be a statistic.
2. Never leave your drink unattended at a college party, bar or club.
If you’ve left your drink unattended and have any inclination that someone may have slipped a date rape drug into your drink, otherwise called a roofie, just buy another one. It’s well worth the couple bucks.
3. Don’t do drugs. Most universities have strict policies for drugs on campus and if you are concerned about issues related to college safety you should always say no to drugs.
4. If your classmate asks you for a ride home, it may make sense to refuse if you do not know the person well or they make you feel uncomfortable.
5. Familiarize yourself with your university’s in school safety policies and procedures.
You can usually find information about these safety policies on your school’s website. For example, UCLA has a detailed page on its website dedicated to educating its students about campus safety and security.
6. If you are worried about your safety at night, don’t walk alone on-campus.
Most schools feature walk-safe programs, whereby you can request to be escorted by a security officer, school staff, or another student to your house or car. Your campus security are there to help improve campus safety and you should not hesitate to use their services.
7. Familiarize yourself with the location of outdoor on-campus emergency phones.
These phones connect you directly to your campus security services. Many schools, such as, Hobart William Smith College, have a map on their website with the locations of on-campus emergency light phones. These phones are sometimes equipped with video cameras and loud speakers.
8. Carry a mobile phone so you can notify your contacts, campus-security or the police should you find yourself in an emergency.
9. In addition to carrying a mobile phone, you can also download location-based, personal-safety applications such as Guardly.
If you are in an emergency Guardly allows you to immediately notify a custom group of contacts, the police and in many cases campus security with your exact location. Additionally, you can communicate with your contacts, during an emergency, through instant messaging, conference-calling and SMS, helping to improve in school safety.
10. Follow your instincts. If a situation doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.
11. Have a friend or family member who you can always get a hold of to help you in case of an emergency. This is one of the most simple yet effective on campus safety strategy’s.
12. Another important on campus safety tip is to tell a friend and/or family member where you are going and notify them when you arrive safely at your destination.
13. Leave your campus party or pub night if it gets too wild, or if people are getting overly drunk and aggressive.
Attending a campus party or pub night that becomes too wild could be dangerous. As a newsletter from Indiana University states: about 1 in 4 women experience unwanted sexual intercourse during their college years and many times this sexual abuse occurs during or after an on-campus party.
14. Don’t pick fights with others on-campus and if provoked walk away or inform the proper authorities.
15. If a person on campus threatens, harasses or in any way causes you harm, immediately inform your campus security and/or the police.
You can use Guardly to immediately contact campus security services or the police and communicate with them through conference-calling, instant messaging or SMS.
16. If you witness a crime being committed on campus, contact campus-security. Don’t be silent if you happen upon a crime committed on-campus, instead inform the proper authorities and help improve campus safety for everyone.
For example, there are many organizations, such as Crime Stoppers of Canada or Crime Stoppers USA, that you can contact to report a crime you may have witnessed. Many of these organizations allow you to remain anonymous so you do not have to fear for your safety.
17. If you are living in an apartment or in a house off-campus, make sure you have smoke detectors installed and that your residence meets all safety regulations.
18. Familiarize yourself with the fire exits and escape routes in your school. So in the event of an emergency, such as a fire or terrorist attack, you are prepared.
19. If you have sex make sure to always use protection in order to prevent STD’s and unwanted pregnancies.
It is estimated that 1 in 4 students will contract an STD during college so it is important to always use protection if you are sexually active.
20. Have a yearly visit with your campus physician. Seeing a doctor regularly is important to keeping you healthy and safe.
21. Make an appointment with your school therapist should you feel emotionally unstable. This is an important yet overlooked part of college safety.
22. While in school do not overwork yourself and exercise regularly in order to deal with stress related to your studies.
Stress among college students is very common. According to a study by the Associated Press of college students, over 80% of students sometimes or frequently experience stress. It is therefore important to exercise and keep healthy, especially during your studies.
23. Try your best to get a good night sleep before class.
24. Do your best to stay on well-lit paths while walking through campus at night.
25. If you feel threatened on campus, consider carrying pepper spray (as long as it’s legal in your jurisdiction).
Related Posts:
Preventing crimes and making sure students feel safe on campus are two of the most important objectives of any campus security organization. We at Guardly have composed a list of the top 25 measures that college security staff can employ to maintain in school safety.
1. If you do not already have a mass notification system then ensure you install one as soon as possible.
Mass notification systems are highly prevalent among colleges and universities across North America. For example, a study conducted by Siemens of 77 high-learning institutions found that every single one had some type of mass notification system. MNS systems help prevent crime and we at Guardly recommend that security professionals investigate how they benefit campus safety.
2. When the school year starts send a mass notification to every student with the contact information for campus security services.
3. Make sure health facilities are up to date and that there is a campus physician on-staff at all times.
The incidence of contagious diseases being spread on health facilities is startling. In fact, according to the Center for Disease Control there are 7 million infections and 99,000 deaths annually in the United States during hospital visits. Therefore, having extremely clean and modern campus health facilities with a campus doctor available 24/7 will improve the health of your whole college.
4. Make note of the places on campus where the most crimes occur and increase your security presence in those targeted areas.
This increase may include extra security patrols and/or the installation of cctv cameras and emergency phones. Many universities realize the importance of increasing their security presence on university campuses. For example, a report by Purdue university recommends doubling the amount of security cameras on-campus.
5. In order to increase in school safety, ensure that the school administrators and professors are kept fully up-to-date on all criminal activity on campus.
The staff and professors of your universities are in many cases on campus more than your school’s students and as a matter of personal-safety, they have a right to know if there is a crime committed on campus. Additionally, they are instrumental in managing your school and communicating with the student population. Therefore, keeping them up-to-date on all criminal activity on campus will help them craft school policy, administer budgets and communicate with students, in such as way as to always keep in mind concerns about criminal acts on campus.
6. Make sure to employ the latest technology to protect your campus. Mobile applications such as Guardly can help your students feel safe at school. Using Guardly, your students can immediately notify on-campus security, with their location, should they experience an emergency.
Venture-backed, Guardly has partnerships across North America and has featured such as the Financial Post, Yahoo News and the Huffington Post. Guardly provides a very cost-effective method of turning your student’s smartphone into a blue light emergency phone which will exponentially improve college campus security.
7. Organize self-defense classes on campus.
For example, the university of Ottawa has an on-campus self-defense program called Rape Aggression Defense. This program, which costing $20, is affordable for all students, specializes in teaching women self-defense in case of an attack on campus. The program is well integrated with school counselling services and the program instructors are well versed in the sensitivities towards students who may have been survivors of sexual violence.
8. Promote a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment, drugs, and other common on campus crimes.
9. Encourage female students to always keep pepper spray in case of an attack.
10. Ensure there is proper lighting on paths and secluded sections on campus.
Having well lit paths is very important to maintaining and improving college campus security. For example, A university of Minnesota study of its Duluth campus suggested that improving the lighting systems around certain targeted areas around campus could help reduce crime.
11. Check to make sure your campus’ wifi is always working so students can use personal safety applications, such as Guardly, in case of an emergency.
The internet and mobile technologies have provided people with better ways to keep safe on campus. Location-based personal safety applications such as Guardly are committed to take advantage of these technological breakthroughs.
12. Frequently inspect your cctv cameras and emergency phones, ensuring your security equipment is working properly.
13. Provide top-notch training for new hires and continuing education for your more experienced security staff, in order to have well trained security personnel who can effectively combat crime on-campus.
14. In compliance with the Clearly Act make sure all crimes are reported to the proper authorities and that the campus community is made aware of all crimes committed.
Jeanne Clearly was a 19 year old freshman who was raped and murdered on campus in 1986. In response the this heinous crime the federal government introduced a bill that demands universities gather and report all crimes committed on, or near the school’s campus.
15. Encourage respect for cultural diversity on campus. Develop cross-cultural learning opportunities for students and implement a zero-tolerance policy for hate crimes.
16. Maintain a security escort or a walk-safe program for students walking alone at night in order to improve in school safety.
York university has a program called goSAFE which is staffed completely by university students. This program allows anyone on campus between the hours of 6:00pm to 2:00am to be safely escorted by a student to their class, residence, vehicle or any other place on campus. Using Guardly’s personal-safety application can help improve your walk-safe program. This is because a student who feels the need to be escorted on-campus, can instantly contact your walk-safe program and you will immediately know the student’s location, increasing the efficiency and speed at which the student can be reached by one of your staff members.
17. Provide a special ombudsman who can address issues such as sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
18. Ensure your campus complies with your school’s or your local government’s accessibility standards, including the American Disability Act, by making sure your campus is accessible for people with disabilities. To meet these requirements, ensure that you have installed necessary equipment including ramps, elevators, emergency phones or virtual emergency phones like Guardly.
The American Disability Act states that “ no individual may be discriminated against on the basis of disability” and this type of accommodation is applicable to post-secondary institutions. Guardly helps you keep in compliance with the ADA because it provides your students with a powerful way to instantly communicate with you should a disabled student experience an emergency on campus related to their disability.
19. Create and instill a harmonious relationship with local businesses and residential neighbourhoods close to campus. This could include informing the local community should on campus crimes occur and fostering dialogue with representatives of local businesses and neighbourhoods.
For example, Boston University has a top notch community outreach program. Its mission statement exemplifies the program’s goal to improve their community. Specifically it states that “The Community Service Center aims to provide the Boston University community with opportunities to address and improve the critical concerns of Greater Boston” This initiative has strengthened the ties between Boston University and the local community and is clearly beneficial to campus safety.
20. Increase your college campus security presence during events where crimes are more likely to occur, such as heated political demonstrations or your school’s pub night.
21. Maintain close ties with your school’s student council ensuring that you keep them up to date on all campus security matters.
22. Conduct yearly audits and always look for ways to improve in school safety.
The Clearly Act mandates that campus security professionals compile annual statistics on crimes committed on campus. Consequently, personal safety applications such as Guardly can help you compile the data needed for your reports. Specifically, when a student sets off a Guardly alert you will immediately receive their exact location, medical profile and be able to maintain constant communication throughout the emergency. Therefore, using Guardly increases your ability to monitor and respond to crimes committed on campus, dramatically improving your data collection and reporting schemes.
23. Have a zero-tolerance policy for racial profiling amongst your college security staff.
24. Install large emergency signs and maps around campus for students and staff, in order to help them feel safe on campus and provide instructions to students in case of an emergency.
25. Make sure all fire alarms and smoke detectors are working and up to date. Conduct yearly fire drills in order to ensure that your campus community is well prepared for any type of emergency.
Related Posts:
To combat depression in college students it is vital that universities create safety protocols to ensure that students receive immediate medical assistance should their mental state spiral downward. This is one of the most important college health issues and most universities have on-campus physicians and psychiatrists, who can help students overcome severe outbreaks of depression. To treat depression in college students, many universities provide accommodations should the student be unable to attend class due to severe depression. However, despite the accommodations and health-care access that many universities offer students with depression, the current provisions adopted by most schools do not provide adequate protections when an outbreak of depression turns into a medical emergency.
The unfortunate reality is that symptoms for depression can increase and decrease in severity at a moments notice and could demand immediate medical care and/or hospitalization. When a student’s depression leads to a medical emergency, there are currently two primary methods they can use to contact first responders. First, students can use campus emergency phones, which are generally located inside buildings and sparsely along university campus paths; these emergency phones connect students directly to campus security by phone call. Second, students experiencing medical emergencies can use a landline or mobile phone to call 911. The major problem with both of these methods is that they do not provide first responders with important information about the student’s medical illness or prescribed medications, except for what the student may have been able to communicate during the emergency call. Consequently, a student who is making an emergency call due to severe depression cannot be relied upon to convey the precise nature of his or her condition. For example, they may have fainted, become disoriented or could be suicidal. Furthermore, given the fact that many students who attend university live away from home, contacting their families or friends, who may have a better understanding of their condition, could prove to be difficult, if not impossible.
The inability to gather information from a student who is experiencing an emergency, demands a breakthrough technological solution that can immediately provide a student’s medical information to first responders.
Enter Guardly, a venture-backed Toronto start-up with a cutting edge application that solves this and many other college health issues. Guardly, through its Safe Campus Program, offers campus police and public safety departments a game-changing platform to immediately gather medical information about a student undergoing a mental health emergency. Guardly allows students to fill their medical information into a profile so that first responders have a detailed medical history of any student who uses the application. Therefore, when a student with a severe outbreak of depression sets off an emergency alert with Guardly, first responders will know the student’s exact health profile and will be able to provide improved, potentially life-saving treatment.
Guardly’s mobile application can be used by a student experiencing an emergency to instantly contact campus security, emergency services, and custom groups of people who will be informed when an emergency alert is triggered. Students who have a mental illnesses can group people who may have a specialized understanding of their condition, such as a their family physician, psychiatrist or other mental health practitioner. These people, who may be well acquainted with the student’s medical condition, can offer potentially life-saving information to first responders and university health officials. Depression in college students is a serious mental health issue and Guardly provides schools with a cost-effective mobile emergency response solution that can really help save lives.
Related Posts:
On-campus sexual assault is an issue that every public safety department at universities must contend with. According to a study of undergraduate students by the Archives and Pediatrics of Adolescent Medicine, 53% of women had experienced physical and/or sexual violence and the hands of their partner. However, when a women is raped on a campus, it not only harms the survivor of this horrendous crime, but leads to all women not feeling safe at school, where the rape occurred. Unfortunately, when sexual assaults happen on campus, many female students tend to live in fear that a perpetrator could be lurking around the next corner. This assertion is not hyperbolic ranting, but rather a concrete reality that women across North America undergo during their college years.
Preventing these sexual assaults and helping women feel safe at school, clearly should be a major concern for any university public safety official. To prevent these heinous crimes and to create a campus culture that allows women to feel safe, law enforcement at universities must develop and invest in the best communication tools, which can help reduce and prevent rapes from occurring under their watch. Creating an effective two-way communication system between the student body and on-campus security services will both help women feel safe at school and provide quick access to help should they feel threatened.
To prevent sexual assault and other forms of campus crimes, most universities currently use emergency light phones. Emergency light phones are land-line phones which are scattered throughout college campuses and provide students with instant direct access to on-campus security. They allow students to instantaneously contact campus security, helping to improve in school safety.
While these emergency light phones allow women to feel safe at school and prevent sexual assaults, they do not heavily implement breakthrough technologies such as smartphone technology. Therefore, these emergency phones are not nearly as effective at preventing on-campus sexual assault as they could be. More specifically, emergency light phones are land-line phones and are located in fixed-positions on campus. If a woman feels threatened on campus, depending on her location, she may not have immediate access to an emergency light phone and its communication features. This presents a serious accessibility problem to campus police and public safety officials at schools, since women may not be able to reach them adequately during an attack or times of distress.
With the high adoption rate of smartphones among college students, public safety administrators now have an opportunity to implement a more effective emergency light phone solution to prevent sexual assault. For example, Guardly, provides universities with a Safe Campus Program which effectively turns a student’s smartphone into an emergency light phone. If a woman on campus feels threatened they can use Guardly to immediately contact and communicate with on-campus security and police, regardless of their location. Guardly uses GPS, cell-tower location and wifi hotspot locations to ensure the most accurate location positioning possible with your smartphone. When you use your mobile phone to call campus police, they will not know your location. Alternatively, when someone uses a land-line emergency light phone, the on-campus security or police only have access to the location of the phone which was used.
Sexual assaults may occur in many different locations or places on campus, and may include a chase or full-scale abduction, which would mean the victim and attacker would continually change locations. These rapid location changes make it very difficult for authorities to locate the attack when an emergency light phone is used to announce the emergency incident. Guardly solves this problem because it tracks the victim’s location using their smartphone’s GPS functionality and helps campus police to locate the victim regardless of the their location. By taking advantage of mobile technology, Guardly improves in school safety and reduces the number of on-campus sexual assaults by bringing emergency light phones into the 21st century.
Related Posts:
Rebekah Smiltneek took it upon herself to write a detailed recommendation report for Guardly to be adopted by the campus police department at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. This report was initially part of her class project. Everyone at Guardly thanks Rebekah for taking the time and care to consider our Safe Campus program for her school.
Cover Letter
Enclosed is “Security Mobile Phone Application: A Recommendation Report.” This report contains a recommendation of the Guardly Safe Campus system, a new technology aimed at increasing campus safety and communication with campus police.
Since you have expressed your commitment to investing in technology upgrades for the UW-Milwaukee Police Department, I hope you will carefully consider this recommendation. The report analyzes smartphone use on college campuses and the merits of the Guardly Safe Campus system. The features, costs, benefits, and demand for the Guardly Safe Campus system are discussed. I obtained many facts about the product from a Guardly representative.
I hope this report will provide you with all the information you need to evaluate the Guardly Safe Campus system for UW-Milwaukee. Please let me know if you have any questions about this report.
Executive Summary
This report examines the effects of the UW-Milwaukee community’s inability to use current cell phone technology, such as texting and sending photos, to communicate with police. The purpose of this report is to provide the UW-Milwaukee Police Department with the information necessary for assessing the effectiveness of implementing a security phone application, Guardly Safe Campus, for all UW-Milwaukee students, faculty, and staff.
The procedures used to conduct this study are the following. Many recent news stories were consulted. They have revealed the need to utilize this technology, and the federal government also has recognized its importance. Essential information was also gleaned from a Guardly representative, who was consulted in a webinar.
The major findings of the report are the following: (1) Smartphone use is increasing on college campuses. (2) The Guardly Safe Campus mobile phone application has all the features the police department needs to increase its responsiveness on campus. (3) The cost of the mobile phone application system will be affordable for UW-Milwaukee. (4) There will be numerous benefits of implementing the system for students, faculty, and staff, the police department, and the university as a whole. (5) Demand will be high for the phone application. Further research is needed to determine how much it would cost to train employees on the Guardly Safe Campus management system.
Based on these findings, the conclusion has been reached that Guardly Safe Campus would be an appropriate and important addition to the UW-Milwaukee Police Department’s services. The report recommends that the university fund and implement this service as soon as possible.
Introduction
On today’s college campuses, just being able to call campus police in an emergency is not enough. With the prevalence of cell phone technology, students assume they can text the police. When police don’t receive these texts, students have no chance to get help. This is exactly what happened in the infamous Virginia Tech shooting. Some students were in a lecture hall with the shooter, so they couldn’t talk on the phone or call out for help (Gillespie, 2011, p. 1). They desperately tried sending text messages to 911. Local dispatchers never received the silent cries for help (Guardly safe campus). A situation like this could happen at UWM, and lives could be saved if students could text the police.
Another heart-breaking example of text messages not reaching the police is when a girl watched as her two friends were attacked by the “East Coast Rapist” in a wooded area of Prince William County. The Washington Post reported, “The teenager knew that if she tried to make a call from her cellphone, the man would hear her voice and things would get even worse. But she had to get help. She pulled out her cell and started thumbing. ‘911 . . . pls noww man with gun,’ she wrote in a text message. The urgent plea went out to her mother, father and four friends. But emergency dispatchers at the 911 call center never got it” (Labbe-DeBose, 2011, p. 1). This situation could happen in one of our campus’s dorm rooms. Imagine a woman hiding in her dorm room closet while someone attacks her roommates. What a terrible choice she would have to make between calling police and risking being heard and assaulted by the attacker or staying silent and helpless in the closet. Enabling her to text the police would eliminate that terrible choice.
A woman watching her friends being attacked in a dorm room could text her friends for help, but why not the police? Texting can certainly save lives, but it is not as efficient to text a relative or friend when you could just directly text the police. ABC News recently reported on an emergency situation in which texting for help was all two men could do. Seventeen-year-old Tom Mulvaney and his 73-year-old grandfather capsized their canoe is icy water. Even though their wet cell phones didn’t work, they were still somehow able to text relatives for help. Those relatives then had to call 911 (Pinto, 2011). How much more efficient would it have been if the men would have been able to text the police in the first place? Police know how precious those seconds are in an emergency situation.
The federal government has recently recognized texting as the solution to the problem. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) thinks the ability to use cell phone technology in emergencies is important. On September 22, 2011, the FCC took the first step toward “updating the nation’s 911 emergency dialing system to receive text messages, pictures and videos, in addition to voice calls” (Gross, 2011, p. 1). James Barnett, chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, said “The ability to send text messages photos and video clips has become commonplace for users of mobile devices, but our legacy, circuit-switched 911 system does not support these forms of communication. Adding these non-voice capabilities to our 911 system will significantly improve emergency response, save lives, and reduce property damage” (Gross, 2011, p. 1). Barnett also confirmed that in some situations, having to make a voice call puts victims in further danger. The federal government recognizes the importance of solving the current problem.
In light of these recent real-life examples of the problem and the government’s endorsement of texting as the solution, I propose the UW-Milwaukee Police Department enhance its security services by using the cell phone technology that the majority of students, faculty, and staff already use. I urge you to implement a security smartphone application for all students, faculty, and staff that will enable your police to receive locations of users, text, and photo messages, and more.
Analysis of Smartphone Use
To implement a security smartphone application on campus, students will first need to have smartphones. Smartphone use is steadily increasing. A study by Ball State University found that 99.8 percent of college students own a cell phone (Truong, 2010, p. 1). In February 2009, only 27 percent of students used smartphones (Truong, 2010, p. 1); however, Adam Levine of Gaurdly, a company that produces security phone applications, reports that about 65 percent now use smartphones (2011, p. 4).
I did my own smaller survey of 25 UW-Milwaukee students to see if I would find the same results as Guardly. I did. Sixty-four percent of students I surveyed use a smartphone.
What are students using their smartphones for? In 2011, Graham surveyed 462 college students on their smartphone use. Out of 19 possible choices, 95 percent of students said they use texting on their smartphones—more than any other feature (Graham, 2011, p. 4). Photos and video came in at 91.3 percent, while only 81 percent of students said they use voice calling. In my survey, I asked students what they use their smartphones for. My results illustrate the same trend Guardly found.
Texting is one of the most popular activities, with photos and video sharing next, and voice calls after that, coming in at only 87 percent. Texting is overtaking calling as students’ main way to communicate. The Ball State University study found 97 percent of students use texting as their main form of communication—not email or instant messaging (Truong, 2010, p. 1). The popularity of texting as evident by these surveys and studies explains why students expect to be able to text the police.
What kinds of smartphones do students use? The Guardly study found that the majority of smartphone users have either Android, iPhone, or Blackberry (Levine, 2011, p. 4).
Analysis of Guardly Safe Campus
The stage is set for the implementation of a security mobile phone application because students are increasingly using smartphones on campus. I recommend the Guardly Safe Campus service. It is a security management system that allows first responders to receive texts, photos, and the location of the person communicating with the police. The service includes phone applications for student, faculty, and staff smartphones (Guardly safe campus). The phone application can be used on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7 devices, which are the majority of smartphones students use (Levine, 2011, p. 4).
Features
The Guardly Safe Campus system has many important and useful features for both students and police.
Networks and Communication
The phone application will enable students to communicate quickly with safety networks. Safety networks are lists of contacts that a student can quickly notify in an emergency or non-emergency. In one tap, students can alert two different safety networks (Levine, 2011, p. 5):
- Campus police or 911 (depending on where the student is)
- Friends, family, and/or neighbors
Students can create custom safety networks, like “Studying Late” or “Allergic Reaction.” This ensures students can quickly contact the appropriate friends or relatives in any situation. In certain situations, these friends of relatives might be more helpful than the campus police. For example, if a student has an allergic reaction, a family member or roommate could quickly bring the medicine they need to their location. Another example would be a female student who is walking home from campus to her apartment in the evening. She feels like she is being followed, so she alerts campus police and her “Studying Late” safety network. Her “Studying Late” safety network could include friends who live in nearby apartments who could aid her. This feature could also be especially useful to disabled students who may have difficulty contacting people for help.
The phone application will enable students to do the following (Guardly safe campus):
- Communicate with campus police and/or safety networks by voice calling
- Communicate with campus police and/or safety networks by sending text messages and photos
- Play a loud whistle to scare attackers/followers or alert others to their situation
Profile and Location
When a student communicates with campus police and/or safety networks, the following information will be sent automatically:
- Real-time location
- Personal profile information
Each person using the Guardly phone application would create a profile with personal information to be shared with campus police or other security networks in an emergency. The personal profile would include the following information to be sent automatically to police in an emergency:
- Identity
- Campus email
- Phone number
- Physical or medical information such as allergies or current medications
- Emergency contact information such as parents’ or doctors’ information
In addition to the profile information, Guardly will also immediately send a student’s real-time location to police. Guardly uses GPS technology, cell-tower triangulation, and WiFi-hotspots to maintain accurate readings of the person’s location (Guardly safe campus). Police can define the area/perimeter in which students can alert campus security. This system has the following advantages over code-blue emergency phones in terms of location (Levine, 2011, p. 9):
- Faster access to report incidents
- Faster ability to respond to incidents
- Campus police can stay connected if the emergency moves
In addition, students will know how to use the mobile phone application to alert police to their location. In my survey, I found that although 76 percent of students are aware of the code-blue emergency phones on campus, only 44 percent know how to use them.
The real-time location feature would be especially helpful to the disabled. After observing a blind friend struggling to figure out his location on campus while using his iPhone, I realized that having his location immediately sent to police in an emergency would be immensely helpful. Guardly can be used by people with hearing, visual, or physical impairments. The Guardly website says, “Guardly for iPhone has been specifically designed with accessibility standards and can be fully operated by vision impaired individuals (after initial setup of the mobile application).” (Guardly safe campus). Additionally, the texting feature of the phone application would facilitate clear communication with speech-challenged students.
Management System
The management system interface will be easy to install and use. Guardly works with many existing systems, and Guardly can also do a custom system integration. First responders will be able to locate everything they need from one page.
The Guardly Safe Campus management system will keep track of everything for the police department, including the following (Levine, 2011, p. 12):
- All incidents
- Time data
- Location data
- People notified and involved
- Any communications after the incident
First responders will use an easy, web-based system that requires no additional hardware or software beyond a computer, monitor, and internet browser. The system will improve compliance by improving reporting and auditing capabilities.
Cost
With the recent budget cuts to education in Wisconsin, you may be thinking UW-Milwaukee will be unwilling to fund an updated security system. However, safety is a huge concern of parents and students in making college decisions. If students and parents feel the campus is unsafe, they may choose a college in the suburbs. Additionally, Chancellor Lovell has mandated that all UW-Milwaukee freshmen, with some exceptions, live in residence halls starting next year, and sophomores must live on campus as well in three to five years (Herzog, 2011, p. 1). This will mean more students on campus more often, which increases the need for improved safety features.
The retail price for the Guardly mobile application is $20 per year per person. However, I discussed the possibilities with Adam Levine, a Guardly representative, and he said Guardly is [priced differently for schools and that there would be a substantial discount on a per person basis, for an implementation at UW-Milwaukee]. *Pricing details were removed from the public version of this report.
Benefits
There would be numerous benefits to implementing the Guardly Safe Campus service for students, the police department, and the university. The benefits to students, faculty, and staff would be the following:
- They could communicate silently with police and/or security networks when oral communication would put them in further danger or is not possible.
- They wouldn’t need to waste time communicating their identity or other information about themselves.
- They wouldn’t need to know and communicate their location.
- They wouldn’t need to remember descriptions of the person(s) involved in the situation.
- They would feel more empowered to communicate with police.
The benefits to the police department would be the following:
- Police can respond more efficiently, quickly, and accurately due to increased communication of information.
- Finding and arresting criminals would be easier with photos to assist. No longer are descriptions dependent on memory.
- Compliance will be improved.
- The system will be easy for police to implement and use.
The benefits to the university would be the following:
- Criminals would be deterred by the thought that anyone can silently text the police or take photos and send them to the police.
- The school could advertise its commitment to the safety of students by pointing out its use of the most current cell phone technology. As a result, enrollment could increase.
Demand
Will students want to use this phone application if offered? Demand will be high. Guardly did a survey of Canadian college students to discover how enthusiastic and cooperative students would be about signing up for and setting up a security mobile phone application system. If the mobile phone application was offered free to students, 93 percent said they would sign up for it. The majority of students would also be willing to provide police with essential information on a student profile. They would give their email addresses (96 percent), phone number (93 percent), and emergency contacts (83 percent) to help police.
I did my own survey of UW-Milwaukee undergraduate students to discover if I would obtain similar results on our campus. In my survey, 76 percent said they would want the security mobile phone application system if it were free. The majority would be willing to fill out a student profile for the police to use in an emergency (72 percent) and provide their email addresses (68 percent) and emergency contacts (60 percent) on their student profile, but they were divided as to providing their phone numbers.
Additionally, I found that only 24 percent of students always feel safe on campus. Sixty-eight percent said they would feel more empowered to communicate with police in an emergency if they had the security mobile phone application installed on their phone.
Administrators as well as students recognize the demand for this kind of application. In September 2011, a security mobile phone application became available to students at the University of Maryland. The application was developed by a university computer science professor and a team of students in conjunction with campus police. Shiv Krishnamoorthy, a doctoral candidate who helped develop the application, said students are eager for smartphone applications that will help them feel safer on campus (Sentementes, 2011, p. 1C).
Conclusions and Recommendations
After researching and analyzing the problem and solution, I conclude the following:
- Smartphone use is steadily increasing on college campuses.
- The Guardly Safe Campus mobile phone application has all the features the police department needs to increase its responsiveness on campus.
- The cost of the mobile phone application system will be affordable for UW-Milwaukee due to large discounts offered.
- There will be numerous benefits of implementing the system for students, faculty, and staff, the police department, and the university as a whole.
- Demand will be high for the phone application among students and administrators who use smartphones.
I urge you to add this life-saving technology to your security services at UW-Milwaukee. The police department is already using texting (the S.A.F.E program) to communicate to students, faculty, and staff about on-going threats to the campus. Why not allow them to communicate with police using this same technology? Since the police department is committed to using “progressive and technologically sound practices,” (Mission statement) why not take this logical and important next step in protecting the campus? Implement the Guardly Safe Campus system.
References
Gillespie, E. (2011, April 16). Texting 911 in the works. Corvallis Gazette-Times. Retrieved on November 11, 2011 from <http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/article_a7ed21ca-67fd-11e0-b847-001cc4c03286.html>
Graham, H., Griffin, M., Howell, S., Taylor, H. (2011, April 24). College students and smartphone usage. Retrieved November 11, 2011 from
<http://hsometimes.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/survey-project-with-appendix.pdf>
Gross, G. (2011, September 22). FCC moves toward texting, video for emergency calls. IT News. Retrived October 25, 2011 from <http://www.itnews.com/3g/37095/fcc-moves-toward-texting-video-emergency-calls>
Guardly safe campus. (2011). Guardly.com. Retrieved October 25, 2011 from <https://www.guardly.com/partners/safe-campus-program>
Herzog, K. (2011, October 13). New chancellor Lovell to put UWM in spotlight. JS Online (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Retrieved on October 25, 2011 from
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/new-chancellor-lovell-to-put-uwm-in-spotlight-131836223.html>
Labbe-DeBose, T. (2011, April 23). 911 systems slow to make shift to text-messaging. The Washington Post. Retrieved on October 25, 2011 from
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/texting-911-emergency-line-just-doesnt-get-it/2011/03/28/AF3VKnXE_story.html>
Levine, Adam. (2011). Guardly safe campus program. [PowerPoint Presentation].
Pinto, B. (Reporter). (2011, March 27). 911: Getting answers; Emergency text messages. World News Sunday [Television broadcast]. Chicago.
Sentementes, G.G. (2011, August 28). On-campus safety apps; Companies partner with colleges for high-tech security solutions. The Baltimore Sun. p. 1C.
Truong, K. (2010, June 17). Student smartphone use doubles; Instant messaging loses favor. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on October 27, 2011 from <http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/student-smartphone-use-doubles-instant-messaging-loses-favor/24876>
UW-Milwaukee Police Department. (n.d.). Mission statement. Retrieved on October 25, 2011 from <http://www4.uwm.edu/police/about.cfm>
Bibliography
Bambenek, J. & Klus, A. (2008, July-September). Do emergency text messaging systems put students in more danger? Educause Quarterly, 31(3).
Communications Daily. (2011, October 6). 911 overload calls for transition to NG911, technical solutions, policy, procedure changes.
Dalton, M. (2011, April 11). WLU officials think texting option makes for safer school experience. The Record.com. Retrieved on November 22, 2011 from < http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/515380–wlu-officials-think-texting-option-makes-for-safer-school-experience>
International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry (CITA). (n.d.)
Texting loved ones during an emergency. CITA.org. Retrieved on November 22, 2011 from < http://www.ctia.org/consumer_info/safety/index.cfm/AID/10570>
Magid, L. (2010, November 23). Magid on tech: Expanding 911 to take texts, video. San Jose Mercury News (California).
Targeted News Service. (2011, September 22). Thursday 6:18 AM EST. statement of Commissioner Michael J. Copps.
Woodruff, A. (2009, July 1). High-tech 911 system coming to Madison County. Athens Banner-Herald (Georgia).
Related Posts:
Guardly Shares the Key to a Successful Project
Ceremonies took place in Ottawa yesterday to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, where 14 young women were killed in Montreal in December 1989. These ceremonies come on the tailwinds of the Penn State sexual violence scandal, where a football coach had been assaulting young boys for decades.
Twenty-two years later, and sexual violence against students is still a continuous threat. However, there is still hope for a future free from violence on campuses. In fact, as you read this there are several groups forming on campuses across Canada to think up innovative ways to put an end to this problem that continues to plague us.
On November 25th, the Federal Minister for Status of Women, Rona Ambrose, announced a call for proposals for projects to address violence against women on post-secondary campuses. The federal government will accept project submissions until January 27, 2012 and can provide funding of up to $200,000; the Call for Proposal recommends projects to be led by Student Unions and On-Campus Women’s Centres and promotes the development of partnerships between campus security, corporations and other organizations that may help to decrease violence against women.
“I think one of the things that concerns me the most is complacency in large institutions. We saw that with something very recent with Penn State University,” Ms. Ambrose said in an interview last week. “That’s why I’m targeting the students here, not targeting the institutions.”
Guardly has been working to build a relationship with the Status of Women to better understand what a comprehensive proposal should look like. The website explicitly states that “campus awareness and prevention campaigns should not be the only or primary focus of the proposed initiative.” From our working knowledge, we recommend closely adhering to the Key Activities listed on the website. Further, we urge you to consider including Guardly’s Safe Campus solution as a component of your overall proposal and consider partnering efforts to empower women on campus to foster a safer campus environment. Guardly offers a unique value proposition to women walking alone on campus and can help make your project stand out amongst others submitted for consideration. For any group looking to learn more about how we can fit into the proposal you are putting together, please reach out to me to setup a brief call; my contact details are at the end of this post.
Key Activities
The following Key Activities (bolded items) have been extracted from the Status of Women call for proposal:
a. Engage and establish working partnerships with women and men on campus; and as applicable, with campus community stakeholders.
There is no excuse for allowing women to be targeted on campus because of their gender. Our goal is to work with universities to help create a new model to end violence against women on campus. The Guardly Safe Campus Program is perfect for helping students leverage existing resources dedicated to safety on campus. We hope to compliment your existing prevention and awareness programs, helping to drive student buy-in and overall engagement. Our mobile applications allow students to be both proactive and reactive about their personal safety. For example, users are encouraged to create groups of responders that they can alert in times of an emergency. As a responder, you are asked to accept an invitation to join someone’s safety group. Each new responder added to the Guardly network associated with your campus helps to build overall awareness of your campaign fighting violence against women. Guardly Safe Campus assists you in building a campus community that looks out for one another. This effectively changes the social dynamics of how students look out for their own personal safety and for the well being of their campus community.
Guardly promotes the participation of men, women, faculty, staff and others in your campus community to commit to looking out for one another.
b. Plan project and adapt to local campus needs:
- conduct a gender-based analysis with respect to gender-based violence and the specific needs of young women;
- work with young women to identify their priorities, viewpoints and potential strategies for addressing gender-based violence;
- work with stakeholders to collectively identify gaps, priorities, opportunities, valuable resources and supports and potential strategies;
- collaborate with stakeholders to ensure tangible results for young women and a coordinated campus community response to gender-based violence;
- identify existing institutional mechanisms and supports as well as gaps (e.g., policies, programs, services, models, strategies, frameworks, planning and decision-making processes, etc.); and
- identify promising practices to address the issue of violence against women on campus.
Over 70% of students have smartphones on campus, and this number increases at a fast clip.[1] Despite the prevalence of mobile phones on campus, almost 81% of on-campus sexual assaults are not reported to the police.[2] We are helping to address the 81% of women who have not called for help. We’ll work directly with your Student Unions and Women’s Centres to administer surveys to help identify any communication gaps that are preventing those threatened on campus from accessing the services that are currently available to them. We can assist your project team members in working directly and/or virtually with students to educate them about the support lines that are available to them on campus and can demonstrate how to use Guardly to leverage these resources when in need. To further drive awareness, Guardly has developed a Campus Ambassador Program, supplying a select group of students on each campus with the materials necessary to educate and train students throughout the year.
c. Implement measures (policies, mechanisms, models and/or strategies) to address the identified issue(s). For example,
- Working directly with stakeholders, conducting and implementing campus safety audits on identified issues. These should identify and propose solutions to the broader safety issues facing young women on campus.
- Develop and implement a campus community plan to help deliver on strategies/approaches to address gender-based violence on campus.
- work with women, planning partners and community members to ensure effective implementation of the plan; and
- focus on a priority component of the plan (e.g., supports for university/college governance bodies and structures for ensuring gender-based factors are considered in decision-making, planning and management).
- Where campus community plans already exist, review to strengthen (e.g., by using gender-based analysis), update, implement a priority component, etc. Work with women, planning partners and community members to ensure effective implementation of the plan.
The Guardly Safe Campus Program has components that automatically track incidents and simplify reporting. This information can be reviewed to demonstrate the different emergency-related trends that women experience on your campus. However, what we are most eagerly looking to prove in working with partners across Canada, is that a Guardly Safe Campus actually has far fewer violent acts committed per annum than it did before such a system was in place. We can work directly with Campus Security, IT, and Communications departments at your university to identify high-risk areas on your campus where the majority of Guardly calls are made and help to facilitate awareness with your project team to ensure women are made aware of these areas.
We can work alongside your team to help with implementation. For campus plans that already exist, we hope that Guardly will present an opportunity to strengthen the reach and overall engagement of your message across campus.
Partnership Opportunities:
Adam Levine
Business Development, Guardly Corp.
Mobile (647) 501-4266
[2] U.S. Department of Justice “Final Report: Understanding Crime Victimization Among College Students: Implications for Crime Prevention.
Related Posts:
Download Guardly
