Larry Dietz said he wants students to be aware of the danger around them.

He also wants to lessen it.

Dietz, vice chancellor of student affairs, and Todd Sigler, SIUC Police chief, worked together to develop a revised campus safety plan to present at the Board of Trustees meeting Thursday.

Advertisement

While Carbondale is a small community, Dietz said students often have misconceptions about what dangers may exist.

“Sometimes students come down from Chicago and it’s a big city with violence so they think this will be a small, quiet community,” Dietz said. “They kind of let their guard down, which is not good to do, because things can still happen here.”

Dietz said the plan includes information from more than two years ago when the university conducted a campus safety walk. He said those results would continue to help improve University Housing safety, which has already started adding keyless entry, security cameras and fire sprinklers in the residence halls.

The plan’s focus is campus safety for students, but procedures for faculty will be included to help them understand how to report concerns and relay students’ worries to the right people.

The campus life safety committee, a team of administrators, faculty and a student trustee, will have an improved plan to keep communication from being lost in translation.

The committee meets once a week and discusses specific individuals who could be a threat and suggest policy changes.

Peter Gitau, dean of students and newest member to the committee, said it is important that faculty and administrators know what to do when concerns are brought to their attention.

Advertisement*

“When the ball is dropped, students are the ones who suffer,” Gitau said. “If you look at the crisis’ at other institutions, it shows how important constant communication is.”

Though Gitau said he does not know much about the plan, he said the general idea is to develop a circle of communication that will not break. He said students could bring their concerns to anyone in the university and the plan should clarify exactly where that person should go so action can be taken.

Dietz said he is confident the plan will explain specifics of how students and faculty can safely handle potentially dangerous situations.

“We need to be vigilant about our own safety and this plan will help,” Dietz said. “The goal is to get the campus and community working together to keep each other safe and I know that can happen.”

Dietz said specifics of the plan would be available after the meeting Thursday.

Jeff Engelhardt can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 268 or [email protected].