Web site names GCSU 8th Safest College Campus

It’s a basic human need and vital to the educational process. However, safety is something that many college students may take for granted. Few GCSU students are aware of the vast network of safety nets that keep them safe while on school grounds.

“We’ve worked out a system, that we’re still working on, that covers the campus pretty well,” Major Joe Grant, deputy chief of University Police, said.

The system has apparently worked out well thus far as GCSU was recently dubbed the 8th Safest College in America by the Web site The Daily Beast.

Since 1990, colleges around the nation have been required to submit an annual report of all criminal activities, including murders, assaults, sexual offenses and robberies. It was based on these statistics that GCSU was ranked 8th out of a pool of thousands of schools with undergraduate programs and a total number of attending students over 6,000.

According to the newspaper, “the best ranking schools are rural.” However, it takes a lot more than a small town to make a safe campus. GCSU employs both a large police force, as well as a volunteer Student Night Auxiliary Patrol, with members who patrol the campus day and night.

“It’s nice knowing that there’s always someone there to look out for me,” GCSU student Caitlyn Kelly said.

However, Grant stressed the fact that even with the many emergency stations and individual call buttons found in every dorm room, it ultimately comes down to the students taking stock in their own safety. Students need to be on the watch for suspicious characters and occurrences and comfortable enough with the university safety system to call in and report them.

“We work hard to create a parental feeling here,” Grant said. “I watch over these kids like they were my own.”

The university, even after achieving the title as 8th in the nation, continues to work to make the campus safer. S.N.A.P. was recently given additional funding this year by the Student Government Association to both resupply their officers and continue its meaningful work, and Grant has announced a student police academy program, where students can learn more about what officers do, how they do it, and how students can help. Ride-alongs, where GCSU students actually ride with GCSU police on regular patrols, have even been mentioned in the program.

“Ideally we’d have those students looking out for trouble, their friends then looking out for trouble and calling in that trouble. That’s a lot of eyes.”

The program would host hours both in and out of the classroom and has been running for about three weeks so far this semester, however Grant urges any student interested in the work of the GCSU police to simply come by the office and ask.

A No. 8 ranking nationally should help parents feel comfortable about sending their children to GCSU to live and learn safely.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 9 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry