Campus Safety makes education big priority for faculty, students

Levonya S. Jenkins
Special to In Motion

With all the active shooter scenarios playing out on college campuses and elsewhere across America, for safety’s sake students enrolled at Daytona State College are required to go through a campus safety orientation.

This provides the student with the what, when, and how on handling an emergency on campus, campus safety location, hours, and directs students to the website where they can sign up for alerts and educate themselves further on campus safety. So, regardless of the startling statistics DSC Campus Safety Coordinator Russell Gibbons is confident in his operations.

Sadly, violence is nothing new on school campuses. The first shooting on a U.S. campus was known as the Pontiac’s Rebellion School Massacre and occurred in 1764, with the slaughter of 10 students and a teacher. During the 1980s a college student named Jeanne Clery was raped and murdered on campus in her dorm. This incited an outrage that had colleges being reprimanded for lack of crime reporting. The result was the Clery Act, formerly known as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act. This mandates that colleges keep public records of crime statistics, a log of all reported crimes on campus and give timely warnings to those threatened by crime on campus. With the number of violent acts on college campuses across the country, students need to make well-informed decisions about where they will attend college and how to ensure their safety once there.

Students can find a copy of the Daytona State College crime statistics on the Campus Safety website. This 44 page document relays all crimes reported in the last three years at Daytona State College and is put out annually. Teachers also undergo a safety training upon hire and all security officers employed by the college are certified in the National Incident Management systems, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and for use of the Automatic External Defibrillator.

“Site maps are given to the local police and we contract them to be part of the landscape. We have them visible during busy times at the college,” says Gibbons, adding that is why it is not uncommon for Daytona Beach Police Department to be on seen on campus.

Gibbons maintains that knowledgeable students and faculty who know how to create a safe environment results in fewer emergencies. Call boxes with red emergency buttons, video cameras and security on patrol 24/7 are all part of safety on the six Daytona State campuses. Campus Safety offers escorts and provides a system through Rave Alert, where students can be kept up to speed on emergencies on campus even if off campus. It is a great tool, along with several education seminars that help students to become aware of procedures and policies

“We try to encourage students to sign up for Rave Alerts and we would love for more students to take advantage of this program,” Gibbons says. Rave Alerts is a program that sends a phone call, text message and e-mail in the event something on campus or in the vicinity should affect students

Every April Campus Safety holds an awareness day in which Michael Chitwood, Chief of the Daytona Beach Police Department, comes out and speaks on behalf of the DBPD. While contact with students is not as prevalent as he would like, Gibbons also has a liaison at every Student Government Association meeting to answer questions or concerns students may have.

The News-Journal Center on Beach Street has similar procedures. Major arts functions, the homeless and parking violators have been an ongoing problem at the building. Campus Safety Officer Malvis Williams says one Campus Safety officer is designated to patrol the News-Journal Center.

“For the most part it’s pretty relaxed, until a major event happens in the city, or we are hosting an event like graduation,” Williams says. Campus Safety at the center also helps regulate parking to ensure everyone has access to the building and a safe parking area. When help is needed, they bring in officers from other campuses.

Making an informed decision about safety attendingo college is just as important as the education students are trying to receive. Making sure all employees and students are properly educated and aware is a top priority at Daytona State College. With quarterly drills and all the safety presentations offered, Daytona State is helping staff, faculty and students make informed decisions that keep them safe, at college and elsewhere.