NACUBO's National Campus Safety and Security Survey Results

NACUBO has released the results of their National Campus Safety and Security survey. The survey had a broad group of project members, covered 342 colleges including a broad range of 2 to 4 year public and private colleges. The results say a number of interesting things about the physical security of the average college campus including the following:

• Most of the surveyed colleges have plans in place for physical security issues such as acts of violence or natural disasters, but far fewer have formalized plans to handle cyber disruptions.
• Physical security controls in many campus buildings are not as widely deployed as one might expect - 40% of respondents report that their public buildings don't have exterior security cameras, and internal security cameras are even less common. Similar data points exist for card access systems and other controls.
• Email, web, text messaging, and landline/voicemail communication systems for emergency notifications are very common.

The survey itself provides many other details on a range of campus security topics from physical security to communications and staff mental health.

This report provides a useful benchmark for higher education safety and security, as well as an interesting perspective. Higher education must carefully balance its historic open nature against modern security needs, as well as budgetary constraints. The data here illustrates the choices that universities are making, and where many may be headed.