Courtesy photo
CAMARILLO — A national higher education statistics company called CollegeStats.org has named CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) one of the top 10 safest campuses in the nation.
The website gathered its data by looking at the crime rates of the top 100 most attended schools in the U.S. CollegeStats.org ranked CSUCI the ninth safest campus in the nation.
“We have an amazing public safety staff,” said CSUCI’s Acting Chief of Police Michael Morris. “I think the cause for this outcome is the fact that everyone on this campus —faculty, staff and students —understand that campus safety is a shared responsibility.”
Morris pointed out that everybody on campus works to keep the environment safe, comfortable and crime-free, but the department is also proud of the extra steps the officers take on a regular basis.
“We do make sure that our officers maintain high visibility at all times with a combination of patrols in marked police cars and as well as foot patrols,” Morris said.
The CSUCI Police Department also creates a sense of community among officers and the campus they protect with regular events that allow the police to interact with students, staff and faculty.
“Coffee with the Cops,” for example, is a popular event co-sponsored by the Police Department and Associated Students Inc. in which members of the campus drop by for a free cup of coffee, snacks and an informal chat.
CollegeStats.org also analyzed survey data from more than 179,000 students to find out whether students felt safe overall.
According to the CollegeStats.org website, almost 29 percent of students said they didn’t feel like that had anything to worry about at school — other than project deadlines and final exams, of course.
Collegestats.org is a nonprofit website that publishes statistics that accredited schools must provide by law. Collegestats.org collects the information and makes it easier to organize so students can make decisions based on a school’s merit, rather than marketing.
About California State University Channel Islands: CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) is the only four-year, public university in Ventura County and is known for its interdisciplinary, multicultural and international perspectives, and its emphasis on experiential and service learning. CSUCI’s strong academic programs focus on business, sciences, liberal studies, teaching credentials, and innovative master’s degrees. Students benefit from individual attention, up-to-date technology, and classroom instruction augmented by outstanding faculty research. CSUCI has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is committed to serving students of all backgrounds from the region and beyond. Connect with and learn more by visiting CSUCI’s Social Media.