CollegeStats.org Announces Top 50 Colleges with Best Safety Resources
NEW YORK — CollegeStats.org released its 2016 College Campus Safety Page Rankings study that ranks the top 50 schools with the most accessible and comprehensive safety resources. The ranking is based on a set of criteria that includes accessible and comprehensive safety resources, emergency procedures, drug and alcohol policies, and crime statistics.
The study assessed the safety resources by first compiling a list of the 100 most-attended universities in the nation as well as the largest college in every state that wasn’t represented on the list — totaling 113 schools. Then, the CollegeStats.org team found each college’s security information or campus police webpage to identify emergency phone numbers, safety tips, crime statistics and reports, and sexual assault procedures. Each university was rated based on how easy it was to access this information.
University of Hawaii at Manoa (UH Manoa), which ranked No. 7 on the list, included a variety of resources and information in the redesign of the UH Manoa Department of Public Safety’s website last year. It features online sign-up for training sessions and workshops, including Active Shooter Awareness & Response, Safety & Wellness and Hurricane Preparedness. It also features safety tips and sexual assault resources in five languages, a downloadable Emergency Response Guidebook and download links for a campus safety app.
Another factor that played into the study was the campus police department’s presence on social media platforms. The CollegeStats.org team ranked each account using analytics such as the amount of followers, likes, and daily activity or involvement. For instance, the No. 1 school on the college campus safety page list was the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Its police department has more than 4,800 followers on Twitter.
Using data analysis for all of the criteria, CollegeStats.org determined the top 50 list, which included these top 10 colleges and universities:
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Ill.
- University of Washington, Seattle
- University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wis. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.
- University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Neb.
- University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.
- University of Hawaii Manoa, Honolulu
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
- West Virginia University, Morgantown, W.V.
- University of Minnesota, Minneapolis