Creating a Safe Campus: A Guide for College and University Administrators

Creating a Safe Campus: A Guide for College and University Administrators

David Nichols

Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, Ltd., 1997, 178 pages (hardcover)

Reviewed by Ann C. Highum, Luther College

This book provides a comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of the various problems and challenges in providing a safe campus for students, faculty, staff and other constituents. The author first sets the stage for this analysis by describing U.S. institutions of higher education as campuses in transition that are mirroring the various societal factors in the larger society. After setting a historical framework, Nichols' second chapter on the issues and impacts of campus crime is a particularly thorough assessment of the realities of campus crime on campuses. He addresses the myths about crime that tend to be overplayed in the media, so as to provide an accurate picture of the crime that does exist. This descriptive chapter completes a picture of the relatively low rate of serious campus crime but makes a case for college and university administrators to recognize the importance of safety efforts in maintaining academic communities and environments conducive to student learning.

The book also includes an excellent chapter entitled "Physical/Environmental Security," which takes the reader through a risk assessment and planning process regarding security and safety needs. The chief student affairs officer, along with the director of security, would be well served to assess the campus environment on a regular basis, through the use of Nichols' process. Any new administrator who will work with or supervise a security unit on his/her campus would find the book helpful in studying current practices and being alert to areas that need updating or changing.

I would also recommend the book as a basis for training of security officers and others on campus who have a stake in maintaining a safe campus environment. The chapter on student affairs principles, while not an in-depth piece, will help those without a student affairs background study the basic principles helpful to any work with students.

Most current books which provide overviews of student affairs practice address issues of security and safety. The author of this piece has clearly enlarged on those ideas, as well as attended to the important efforts of building effective student affairs units, writing strong conduct policies, and developing fair judicial processes. He uses interesting examples, especially in building the case for a philosophical approach called community-oriented policing. This proactive, decentralized approach involves security officers and residents working together to build a community that is not only safer but also meets the special safety needs of an academic environment-especially as applied to student residence hall living.

There was only one major detractor in the book: the seeming lack of attention to all editing details. Several grammatically unclear sentences, a few incomplete sentences, and instances of noun and verb disagreement appeared in the book. In addition to being annoying to the reader, they do not reflect positively on the author's otherwise excellent message, based on his extensive background in campus safety.

One of the final chapters, entitled "Records, Reporting, and Disclosure," summarizes the pertinent federal laws and regulations important to know in the handling of student records of all types, paying particular attention to judicial records. The final chapter outlines the importance of collaborative efforts in relation to these campus safety issues. Nichols makes the point, several times in fact, that the development of good campus safety policies and practices is essential in the building of a positive campus community, and that collaborative efforts with other campus officials are critical toward the development of effective strategies in creating a safe campus. While I cannot argue with this premise, the examples used in the final chapter center on only three categories of campus crime: violence, rape, and campus disruption. The collaboration model described briefly, along with an illustration/flow chart, seemed fairly cumbersome and unwieldy. I would have appreciated a broader selection of examples, followed by illustrations of what each college did do, or might have done to solve or improve the situation. On the other hand, this chapter does illustrate the important point that campus officials, along with students, share the responsibility of communication, information sharing and joint problem-solving among all stakeholders in the creation and preservation of safe campus environments.

Copyright American College Personnel Association Mar/Apr 1998
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