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  • Creating and Maintaining Safe College Campuses: A Sourcebook for Evaluating & Enhancing Safety Programs
  • Carney Strange
Creating and Maintaining Safe College Campuses: A Sourcebook for Evaluating & Enhancing Safety Programs by Jerlando F. L. Jackson and Melvin Cleveland Terrell. Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2007. 288 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN: 978-1-57922-196-6.

This fourteen-chapter volume offers a survey of campus issues, concerns, policies, and practices related to the creation and maintenance of safe campus environments. Chapter one states an urgent case for college administrators to attend to these complex issues, and summarizes the various resources overviewed in subsequent chapters. The next five chapters focus on some of the individual and institutional concerns that comprise the challenge of campus safety. Chapter two addresses the widespread prevalence of high risk drinking on campus, proffering a broad-based environmental approach to the problem that engages both academic and student affairs with the community at large to implement collaborative programs and activities.

Chapter three examines the intersection of violence and hate crimes on campus. Profiles of victims and perpetrators are discussed in the context of defining the problem and understanding its effect on student educational satisfaction, through a campus-based national study on harassment and discrimination. The authors urge college administrators to take an "unrelenting stance" on this issue while being forthright in informing students about incidences and potential risks. Chapter four offers a limited review of campus hazing, focusing primarily on the history of Black fraternities and sororities. [End Page 598]

In chapter five the authors argue for a systemic transformation on campus, "to build an authentic community of difference, where cultural pluralism is the intended outcome and students who are LGBTQA are no longer ignored, devalued, and unsafe" (p. 82). Using a model of three paradigms, senior administrators are urged to exercise their leadership prerogative in acknowledging institutional inequities, expressing public commitments, welcoming activist energies, rewarding campus innovations, and remaining authentic in the face of these social justice issues. Chapter six alerts the reader to the growing concerns about sexual violence against women on campus, including harassment, sexual assault, rape, stalking, and courtship/dating/domestic violence on women's collegiate and workplace experiences. The author concludes with a brief review of the legislative history regarding sexual violence on college campuses and notes the important role student affairs administrators play in supporting campus initiatives and implementing women-centered forms of assistance, such as campus women's centers, educational outreach programs, and national awareness campaigns. A helpful listing of various web-based sources is appended.

The second section of the book examines issues of campus safety from the context of institutional type, and outlines strategic, policy, and legal considerations for implementing campus security programs. Chapter seven addresses the characteristics unique to the community college setting. Of particular note is the challenge these "open-access" institutions face in creating a safe campus environment, especially those ensconced in an urban area that exposes them to "spillover" effects of community crime. Emphasis is placed on prevention measures that increase awareness, identify campus assets and vulnerabilities, and engage community constituents and agencies as partners in minimizing potential threats. In chapter eight minority-serving institutions serve as contexts for reviewing the range of safety issues heretofore discussed, with an eye toward the role of their cultural histories and differences. Included in this chapter are discussions of historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges. The point is made that the "safety issues each faces are augmented . . . by a history of oppression, lack of educational opportunity, and exclusion from public campaigns and funding streams" (p. 168) and that solutions must embrace the overall mission of these schools, that is, to up-lift the community.

Chapter nine offers observations and experiences of a thirty-year veteran of university policing. The author acknowledges the special character of a college campus and its "struggle to remain an inviting neighbor and a secure institution" (p. 174). He further argues that in a post-September 11, 2001 world, the threat of campus violence and terrorism is very real, especially within research facilities, during special campus events, and while hosting high-profile guests. His conclusion is that "colleges and universities...

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