If a serious crime occurs on the Hilltop, who’s required to report it?
Recent sex abuse scandals at Penn State and Syracuse have spurred many universities, including SMU, to clarify or reiterate their own policies about reporting crime on campus.
On Wednesday, SMU President R. Gerald Turner sent out an email to the university community encouraging students, faculty and staff to follow SMU’s “See Something, Say Something” initiative, an awareness campaign launched by SMU in September.
The “Say Something” campaign “reflects SMU’s commitment to promote a secure and healthy environment through the sharing of information with law enforcement authorities,” Turner said in the email.
SMU is not alone in making such declarations. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was quick in his response to the Penn State allegations.
He announced on his blog that he was changing the seminary’s policy handbook to state that employees receiving any report of abuse should contact law enforcement authorities immediately.
Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, also wrote an email urging students, faculty and staff “to act immediately in suspected cases of abuse or other crimes, or in a circumstance where you find yourself either a victim or a witness to questionable activity.”
In response to questions comparing SMU’s policies to scandal-plagued schools around the nation, university officials would only refer to a prepared statement summarizing the school’s crime reporting policies.
According to SMU spokesman Kent Best, the university expects its students, faculty and staff to report suspected criminal activity immediately to law enforcement authorities.
The university also issues campus trespassing warnings to people perceived to be a campus threat and provides opportunities for anonymous online reporting of suspected crimes.
The Clery Act requires all campus security authorities to notify the SMU Police Department about crimes.
A campus security authority is any individual who is responsible for campus security but does not constitute a campus police officer, as well as any individual who serves as “an official of an institution who has significant responsibility for student and campus activities.”
Since coaches and athletic directors are responsible for student campus activities outside the classroom, they are obligated to report all crimes.
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating Penn State based on the failure of several campus security authorities, including Joe Paterno, former head football coach, and Athletic Director Tim Curley, to ensure that allegations of sexual abuse by former Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky was reported to campus police.
SMU athletics spokesman Brad Sutton said his department follows procedures and expectations set for all members of the SMU community.
The SMU Athletics Department “either report[s] the incident directly to SMU PD, or they report the incident to the Dean of Student Life, who then reports to SMU PD,” SMU Police Detective Linda Perez said.
“I personally communicate with many of the coaches on a regular basis, so we already have a good rapport in place,” Perez said.
In SMU’s 2010 Clery Act Report, five “forcible sex offenses” were reported to non-police campus officials at SMU in 2010, compared to only four such offenses reported in 2008 and 2009 combined.
It is likely some of these offenses were reported to physicians and nurses in the Memorial Health Center, according to Perez. She said the frequency of “forcible sex offenses” reported to non-police campus officials at SMU demonstrates the university’s compliance and understanding of the responsibilities of campus security authorities.
SMU senior Megan Welch said she was relieved to learn SMU actively practices the policies Penn State failed to follow.
“I would want to know about [allegations of sexual abuse], and I would like to know that something was being done to bring justice to the situation,” Welch said. “I think it is important that the students are in the loop with what is going on on their campus.”
