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Reviewed by:
  • Creating and Maintaining Safe College Campuses: A Sourcebook for Evaluating and Enhancing Safety Programs
  • Jim Rund
Creating and Maintaining Safe College Campuses: A Sourcebook for Evaluating and Enhancing Safety Programs. Jerlando F. L. Jackson and Melvin Cleveland Terrell (eds.). Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2007, 286 pages, $24.95 (paperback)

In Creating and Maintaining Safe College Campuses: A Sourcebook for Evaluating and Enhancing Safety Programs editors Jackson and Terrell tackle the complex issues of safety at America's multiple and diverse college campuses. They note the significance of institutional type, location, and student composition in shaping the campus environment and the influence these factors have on developing a safe campus environment. This is an extraordinary undertaking (to address standards of safety while acknowledging and accounting for institutional difference), but the editors and respective authors of the 14 chapters of this work do justice to the task.

Following the outline of the book's intent as iterated by the editors Jackson and Terrell (with Heard) in chapter 1, they begin with Ceglarek and Brower's analysis of high-risk drinking. This chapter moves well beyond the normative work on college drinking by noting the secondary and tertiary impacts of excessive [End Page 265] alcohol consumption. The authors also offer insight into the context of the environment noting how municipal law enforcement, local culture, and institutional values play a role in shaping student behavior and informing strategies for intervention and improvement. The authors analyze both licensed and nonlicensed settings and offer best practices for others to adopt.

Cole, Orsuwan, and Sam take a careful look at violence and hate crimes on campus and profile both perpetrators and victims, offering insights into each. These are key observations for university administrators when considering the circumstances on one's own campus and why the composition of the student body may not be well served by conventional approaches to hate crimes. The authors offer empirical evidence measuring the impact of discrimination and harassment of students at a minority serving institution and its corresponding impact on student satisfaction and success. These are key insights for student affairs administrators.

In chapter 4, the long standing issue of student hazing is addressed by Kimbrough in a comprehensive and thoughtful review that includes strategies for improvement. Key in this review is Kimbrough's observation that students who are not affirmed in the larger student community, often students of color, are yet further neglected when they fall victim to hazing. Kimbrough offers a call to action for student affairs administrators to recognize the destructive nature of hazing as a crisis and encourages consistent and decisive action to eliminate it.

Chapters 5 and 6 offer thoughtful observations and insightful critiques of how two communities of students fare within the larger campus culture. Rankin, Millar and Matheis provide a comprehensive overview of the circumstances facing LGBTQA students including useful theoretical paradigm by Palmer and a reflective philosophical frame-work by Roper that would serve administrators well to employ. Student identity and authenticity is paramount to personal success and administrators have both the responsibility and the capacity to nurture and embrace these fundamental traits while building a community of the whole. Likewise women, despite being the largest demographic group on nearly every college campus, face a range of environmental circumstances that not only endanger personal safety but create a perilous environment for personal well-being and individual achievement. Disenfranchised students are by definition more vulnerable to victimization and O'Callaghan makes a compelling case for women students in this regard. Student affairs administrators who believe they are well versed and familiar with the issues facing today's female students are advised to refresh their knowledge and consider O'Callaghan's recommendations to improve campus safety for women.

Institutional context is paramount in understanding the complexities of campus safety as Dukes and Harris so effectively note in their chapter 7 description of community college campus safety. Balancing the mission of community connectedness and the value of openness creates a challenging circumstance for community colleges. Campus administrators are reminded by Dukes and Harris of their responsibility to students, the institution and the community at large and are urged to be vigilant in their cause. These words...

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