Abstract The main purpose of this study is to explore the perception of senior and vocational high school students regarding safety climate and safety performance in the campus. Based on the review of campus safety events, related literatures on campus safety, and the analysis of validity and reliability, a questionnaire was developed which includes 91-item campus safety climate (CSC) scale, 46-item campus safety performance (CSP) scale, 98-item campus safety event likelihood (CSEL) scale. The factor analysis of CSC located four factors including: school commitment and action, student's commitment and perception of risk, safety attitude, response during an emergency, which explain 38.67% of the total variance. And CSP scale results in four factors: safety organization and management, safety training, safety equipment and measures, maintenance and event investigation, which explain 59.85% of the total variance. The researcher distributed 3280 questionnaires to students in 41 senior and vocational high schools in Taiwan. Of these 41 schools, 21 schools were chosen because of their poor performance in campus safety while the other 20 schools were selected due to their bright performance in campus safety. And 2837 valid questionnaires have been returned. The retrieving rate of the questionnaires is 86.49%. The independent-sample T test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation and canonical correlation analysis is has been applied to the analysis of the raw data. The major findings of the research are listed below: 1. Significant positive correlation between CSC and CSP is found. The strongest positive correlation exists between school commitment and action and CSP; the second one is between student's commitment and perception of risk and CSP. 2. School commitment and action is the best predictor to CSP, and the second one is student's commitment and perception of risk. 3. The more score a school gets in CSEL scale, the less campus safety events happened at that school. The significant positive correlation can be found among CSEL, CSC and CSP scale. And the correlation is especially high between CSEL and safety equipment and measure, the same is happened between CSEL and CSP. 4. The most frequent campus event among senior and vocational high school students is injures during exercises and games (26.3%). The next campus event is the conflicts between teachers and students (13.2%). The third one is traffic accidents outside the campus (12%). And the fourth one is the fights among teenagers (10.9%). 5. CSC, CSP and CSEL scales can provide available information for the control of campus safety event and for the direction of prevention campaigns. Keywords: campus safety climate, campus safety performance, campus safety perception

The history of university, college, and high school campuses is eventful with man-made tragedies ensuing a tremendous loss of life. Virginia Tech's April 16 shooting ignited the discussion about balancing openness and safety in open campus environments. Existing campus safety solutions are characterized by addressing bits and pieces of the problem. The perfect example is the recent influx in demand for Electronic Notification Systems (ENS) by many educational institutions following the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. Installing such systems is important, as it is an essential part of an overall solution. However, without a comprehensive, innovative understanding of the requirements for an institution-wide solution that enables effective security control and efficient emergency response, the proposed solutions will always fall short. This dissertation describes an architecture for SINERGY (campuS sItuational awareNess and Emergency Response manaGement sYstem) – a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based network-centric system of systems that provides a comprehensive, institution-wide, software-based solution for balancing safety and openness on any campus environment. SINERGY architecture addresses three main capabilities: Situational awareness (SA), security control (SC), and emergency response management (ERM). A safe and open campus environment can be realized through the development of a network-centric system that enables the creation of a COP of the campus environment shared by all campus entities. Having a COP of what goes on campus at any point in time is key to enabling effective SC measures to be put in place. Finally, common SA and effective SC lay the foundation for an efficient and successful ERM in the case of a man-made tragedy. Because this research employs service orientation principles to architect SINERGY, this dissertation also addresses a critical area of research with regards to SOA; that area is SOA security. Security has become a critical concern when it comes to SOA-based network-centric systems of systems due the nature of business practices today, which emphasize dynamic sharing of information and services among independent partners. As a result, the line between internal and external organization networks and services has been blurred making it difficult to assess the security quality of SOA environments. In order to do this evaluation effectively, a hierarchy of security indicators is developed. The proposed hierarchy is incorporated in a well-established evaluation methodology to provide a structured approach for assessing the security of an SOA-based network-centric system of systems. Another area of focus in this dissertation is the architecting process. With the advent of potent network technology, software/system engineering has evolved from a traditional platform-centric focus into a network-centric paradigm where the “system of systems” perspective has been the norm. Under this paradigm, architecting has become a critical process in the life cycle of software/system engineering. The need for a structured description of the architecting process is undeniable. This dissertation fulfills that need and provides a structured description of the process of architecting a software-based network-centric system of systems. The architecting process is described using a set of goals that are specific to architecting, and the associated specific practices that enable the realization of these goals. The architecting process description presented herein is intended to guide the software/system architects. / Ph. D.

This dissertation examines reported campus crime at Virginia’s institutions of higher education. Utilizing secondary data and content analysis, the research seeks to determine the amount and types of crime occurring on Virginia campuses and which correlates explain such crimes. Three sources of campus crime statistics are included and scrutinized in detail, including the Clery Act statistics, Virginia Incident-Based Reporting statistics and campus crime logs. Regardless of data source, findings indicate that the vast majority of reported campus crime is comprised of property offenses. The research argues to separate analyses by campus police departments versus campus security departments for more meaningful findings. For multivariate analysis, the study employs campus crime logs as the outcome measure for reported campus crime. The results indicate that, in all models, percentage of students living on campus significantly contributes to the explanation and prediction of total, violent/personal, and property crime log offenses reported per 100 students at institutions with either campus police departments or security departments. Additionally, percentage male enrollment was found to significantly contribute to violent/personal offenses reported per 100 students at institutions with campus police departments. Implications of findings and recommendations for policy and future research are discussed.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Major Professor Not Listed / This study used a survey to gather information from 112 women on Kansas State University’s campus on the topic of sexual assault. This study attempted to fill in the gap of research concerning sexual assault, reporting, and student engagement with university prevention initiatives. The key findings of this study show that students are willing to learn about sexual assault, and that high levels of university involvement and high levels of perceived self-efficacy lead to an increase in a student’s willingness to report cases of sexual assault. Future research should explore a branding campaign for successful sexual assault prevention initiatives, while looking into the concept of self-defense as a viable addition to current campus offerings.

The use of crime prevention initiatives on American college campuses has rapidly increased in the past three decades as high profile crime incidents continue to erode the public’s perception of universities as sanctuaries —isolated from criminal activity. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is an environmental approach to crime prevention that refers to strategies that focus on reducing crime opportunities by manipulating the physical and social qualities of the environment. Although empirical research on CPTED is growing, little is known about the impact of this method on educational settings. The main argument of the present study is that CPTED has the potential to foster campus safety by reducing crime and increasing the perception of safety. Based on findings from previous studies, it is expected that universities with higher level of CPTED are more likely to have lower crime rates, and students residing in high CPTED campus facilities are more likely to have higher perception of safety. To test the hypothesized effect, a content analysis of the annual safety reports of 100 postsecondary institutions in the United States was conducted. In addition, the residents of two dormitories of a university were surveyed to assess their safety perceptions. Furthermore, a case study was conducted in a college campus with a systematic deployment of the CPTED approach. In-depth interviews, one focus group, in-site observations, and analysis of secondary data were performed to contextualize the study findings. Although the quantitative analysis of the national review of the annual safety reports did not provide evidence in support of the hypothesized effect, it uncovered a reverse relationship between crime rate and use of environmental crime prevention measures. The results of the survey of students’ perception of safety, on the other hand, revealed evidence in support of the second hypothesis of the dissertation. Furthermore, the qualitative case study analysis provided insight into the implementation procedures, strengths, and challenges of the systematic CPTED program. The main findings show how CPTED works in the academic context and what alterations are needed to advance the program.

This dissertation examined chief student affairs officers’ perceptions of institutional crisis management, preparedness, and response. A goal of this study was to uncover findings that can benefit crisis management protocols or best practices regarding crisis management team training, plan communications, and emergency management personnel on campus, as well as, learn if size of enrollment impacts crisis preparedness and response. Research questions assessed if a significant relationship exists between preparedness in responding to crisis with the number of training topics covered with a crisis management team, the number of modes used to communicate the crisis management plan, size of enrollment and the impact of a director of emergency management position on campus. Next, the study assessed if significant relationships exist between size of enrollment with adequacy team training and perceived manner of crisis response. The sample comprised of Chief Student Affairs Officers from either institutions that previously participated in a similar study in 2001 and 2007, or are NASPA domestic member institutions that are four-year, public or private with an enrollment of 5,000 students or more. It was discovered that four to five training topics delivered and between three to six modes used to communicate the crisis management plan were optimal frequencies for this population. Institutions with a director of emergency management perceived themselves as more prepared, and institutions with 10,000-20,000 students enrolled perceived themselves as the most prepared and proactive. In contribution to the field of conflict resolution studies, this research study connected crisis management to conflict management through a systems design approach

Over the past several decades, the victimization of women on college campuses has not decreased despite an uptick in research and concern surrounding the topic. In this study, I analyzed the victimization prevention messages on the websites of 30 4-year PWIs and 30 4-year HBCUs in the Southeastern United States to investigate how they contextualized such messages. Drawing on a comparative thematic analysis of 132 documents from HBCUs and 138 documents from PWIs, I elaborate on four key themes, with several subthemes: gendered safety messages, rape culture education, racialized safety messages, and collective responsibility. I found that victimization prevention messaging was contextualized by community engagement at HBCUs, and both types of schools engage in victim-centered crime prevention. Additionally, PWIs used language on their webpages that encourages peer-to-peer racialized coveillance. This study contributes to the literature on victimization prevention on college campus, the college-prison nexus, and understandings of sexual assault prevention.

Thesis (M.A. (Criminology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / Campus safety is an important part of a student’s overall university experience. However, safety and security are an issue that institutions of higher learning have to deal with and address within their campuses. The focus of this study was to explore students’ safety at the Universities of Limpopo (UL) and Venda (UNIVEN). This study adopted an exploratory triangulation approach. A triangulation design was implemented to allow the researcher the opportunity to collect qualitative and quantitative data and thereafter, integrate the results in the interpretation stage. For triangulation purposes, data was collected using interviews and a self-administered questionnaire. For the qualitative phase of the research (phase I), twenty face to face interviews were conducted and for the quantitative phase (phase II), eight hundred and nineteen respondents responded to the questionnaire. This study employed Routine Activities Theory (RAT) to discuss the findings. Some of the findings were that the majority of female students who reside off-campus were fearful of being victimised. More female students than males were more concerned of sexual harassment and rape. These criminal incidents were statistically significant. The study further reveals that a lack of sufficient lighting, alcohol and illicit drugs, campus camera surveillance, crime reporting, and the visibility of emergency phones are some of the contributing factors associated with students victimisations. There are no visible police patrolling around the campuses of UL and UNIVEN. The majority of the students do not report their victimisation to the police or campus authorities. Furthermore, this study reveals that there is no relationship between gender and the perception of safety. However, age and level of study have a relationship to the perception of safety and were statistically significant. Based on these findings, crime awareness campaigns, visibility of police patrolling around the campus, and the police should work closely with the University authority.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perception of knowledge of campus police on intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), including autism, in inclusive college programs. A survey was sent to both campus police and representatives of 50 inclusive higher education programs across the United States. These questions involved perceptions of campus police knowledge, training, and the safety of students with I/DD.

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which community colleges have implemented major post-Virginia Tech campus safety recommendations. In addition to gaining a comprehensive overview of the safety policies and practices in place, this study assessed if campus safety policy implementation levels at the community colleges correlated with institutional characteristics, and the internal and external forces that helped drive the implementation of these policies. Focusing specifically upon the Virginia Community College System, data on the policies and practices in place at each of the 23 Virginia community colleges were collected from institutional websites and through follow-up telephone calls. Interviews were then conducted with a small group of administrators from various Virginia community colleges. Analysis of the data indicated that large variance exists across the community colleges, as some have implemented most of the major campus safety recommendations that currently exist, while other have only implemented far less. The results also revealed potential support for larger community colleges with more resources and more campuses implementing more campus safety recommendations. Interview data detailed that external mandates and internal college leadership are the most important forces driving campus safety policy change among the community colleges. A number of policy implications arose regarding where community colleges need to improve their campus safety and how to best drive campus safety policy changes in the future.