How safe is your college student’s campus?

By Rhonda Simmons

Published: October 9, 2008

A brazen sexual attack one week ago in a parking deck at the University of Mary Washington has cast a spotlight on the safety of area students, focusing attention on a federal Web site that tracks crime at public colleges.

Last week, colleges across the county submitted their annual crime data to the Office of Postsecondary Education.

OPE, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, will post the latest figures (from 2007) in December at ope.ed.gov/security/.

In the meantime, officials from area colleges are addressing their crime statistics and assuring the public that safety is a top priority.

Community colleges
Germanna Community College — with campuses in Culpeper, Locust Grove and Fredericksburg — is pretty much crime-free, according to OPE’s yearly campus security analysis.

At the Locust Grove campus, GCC officials reported one burglary in 2005 and no other crimes since then.

“Residential colleges — those with dorms — usually have more problems than commuter schools do,” said GCC spokesman Mike Zitz.

Data on file with OPE also showed that community colleges experience a considerably lower amount of on- and off-campus crime than large universities.

Germanna’s lack of crime, Zitz said, is “due to a combination of things: Our security people can keep an eye on things via high-tech camera systems, and at the same time, there’s a personal touch. Our security people often walk students, faculty and staff to their cars at night.

“And our entire community looks out for each other. There’s still a cozy, small-town feel to things, even at our Fredericksburg campus, which has seen such rapid growth.”

Mark Borchers, safety and security manager at Germanna, agrees.

“It’s the environment,” he said. “We’re isolated like a cul-de-sac. You literally need a reason to come to the campus.”

The 38-year-old community college had 5,167 full-time students in 2006 (not counting the center for workforce, non-credit and dual enrollment students).

Twenty miles north, Lord Fairfax Community College — with 5,856 students in 2006 — reported one forcible sex offense in 2005 at its Fauquier campus. According to Paul Wieber, LFCC’s security manager, there were no criminal offenses, hate crimes, or arrests in 2007 and 2008.

At more urban community colleges with the same criteria, the numbers were slightly higher.

Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton — a two-year public college with 9,718 students — reported an aggravated assault and two burglaries in 2004; four burglaries and one motor vehicle theft in 2005; and two vehicle thefts and one forcible sex offense in 2006, according to the OPE campus security report.

TNCC spokeswoman Belinda Baker said the college’s 2007 figures were unavailable at press time.

Mary Washington
UMW, which has 4,862 students, reported 12 on-campus crimes and two non-campus incidents in 2004. A year later, the university experienced 16 crimes and 17 in 2006, according to the OPE report.

Most of those crimes were forcible sex offenses or burglary.

“I believe that the University of Mary Washington provides a safe environment for our students,” said UMW spokeswoman Teresa Mannix. “As a residential university, we are like a small city within the city of Fredericksburg, and no place is without crime. But we do have very little crime on campus.”

UMW has an on-campus police force as well as a series of initiatives to improve campus safety, Mannix said, mentioning emergency call boxes, “rape aggression defense” classes and other responsible-living education.

Last Friday’s attack at UMW has forced campus police to increase security in the parking deck from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. until further notice. Additionally, more police are patrolling the university grounds, as the suspect remains on the loose.

Statistics’ validity
OPE posted a disclaimer on its Web site cautioning readers that “crime data reported by the institutions have not been subjected to independent verification by the U.S. Department of Education. ... Therefore, the department cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data reported here.”

That brings up the question: Just how accurate are these figures?

Alison Kiss, a program director for Security on Campus Inc., a Pennsylvania-based watchdog organization that tracks college-related crime, warns parents and perspective college students to beware of large universities — such as those with a large population of 10,000 or more students — that submit unusually low crime figures.

“It’s important for parents to look beyond the statistics,” Kiss said. “Larger populations that reflect lots of zeros should raise a red flag.”

At some universities, Kiss said, students encounter a “culture of silence” where they are not encouraged to report crimes.

Therefore, Kiss suggests that parents ask college officials if their institution offers prevention-education services and/or awareness campaigns for students throughout the year.

“If awareness is raised,” she said, “then more students are more comfortable coming forward if they are victimized. Even if the statistics are good, you have to look beyond them.”

Rhonda Simmons can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 125 or .

Why public colleges have to report crimes
Following the sexual attack and murder of their 19-year-old daughter in 1986, Howard and Connie Clery lobbied lawmakers to create federal laws requiring academic institutions to publicly report any school-related crime activity.

Jeanne Clery, a freshman at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., was sleeping in her dorm when a fellow male student entered her residence hall through a “propped open door.”

The Clerys learned that 38 violent crimes had not been made public in the three years before their daughter’s death, according to the couple’s Web site, Security on Campus, Inc. “Our daughter died because of what she didn’t know,” the Clerys wrote.

Howard and Connie Clery later started a nonprofit group called Security on Campus Inc., which petitioned Congress into approving six federal campus crime laws. The Clery Act was signed in 1990, requiring federally funded institutions to openly disclose crime-related incidents on and near its campuses.