During Friday's Board of Trustees morning session, Penn State Clery Compliance Coordinator Gabriel Gates announced that the university is looking to expand requirements on the Clery Act.
Gates said that a goal of expanding the act is to have the exact same safety procedures to be occurring on every campus, no matter the size of their law enforcement.
"We should be informing our students, employees and parents what types of crimes are occurring on campus," Gates said. "That is the spirit of the law."
The Jeanne Clery Act was enacted to require colleges to report crimes and stipulated the terms for which the reporting is to occur.
Gates has launched a Clery Act training program which has been initiated at Penn State to increase awareness of the law itself as well as its requirements, according to a press release.
Gates is currently working on expanding upon reporting procedures and establishing accountability by providing resources to improve safety and security.
"We may not be able to prevent everything, but our program is one of the best in the country," Gates said.
The Clery Act requires all higher education institutions in the country to disclose information about campus crime and security policies. Gates said that this could include issuing campus alerts, publishing annual security reports, disclosing missing student protocols, maintaining a daily crime and fire log and publishing an annual fire report.
Gates also said that using the method of PSUTXT, an automatic texting system that is sent directly to the cellular devices of students who sign up, is a way to help get the word out in times of danger.
"If we have a major crime threat, we will issue a PSUTXT immediately saying there is danger out there, and here are the measures to keep you safe," Gates said.
The act, which was signed into law in 1990, is a result of an incident that occurred on the campus of Lehigh University in 1986. Nineteen-year-old freshman Jeanne Clery was brutally murdered and raped while asleep in her residence dorm hall. Shortly after the incident, Clery's parents discovered that 38 additional violent crimes have occurred on the same campus.
