UNG places emphasis on campus safety

September is National Campus Safety Awareness Month, and the University of North Georgia (UNG) is taking the opportunity to bring attention to campus safety.

"We view campus safety as a community effort, not necessarily an individual department or certain individuals on campus. It's more of a holistic approach to safety," Greg Williams, UNG director of Public Safety and chief of police, said. "We protect our community together. We're all part of the community, so we all have to contribute and not think of Public Safety as the only people that keep us safe."

Part of that initiative is a new UNG safety resources website.

"We've brought all campus safety resources together to form one website, where our campus community can easily access all the tools UNG has available," Brooke Smith, assistant director of UNG's Clery Compliance Office, said.

Public Safety will have several regular initiatives: coffee with a cop events, "see something, say something" approach, classes for CPR/AED and emergency preparedness, and the LiveSafe app. UNG Alert includes a mass notification system that uses e-mails, text messages and phone calls to alert and instruct students, faculty and staff in emergency situations.

"UNG does a phenomenal job collaborating across departments," Smith said. "We are in continuous communication, ensuring everyone has accurate information, allowing us to act quickly and efficiently to meet the needs of our students, faculty and staff. I believe we lead the state when it comes to campus safety."

We protect our community together. We're all part of the community, so we all have to contribute and not think of Public Safety as the only people that keep us safe.

Greg Williams

UNG director of Public Safety and chief of police

The LiveSafe app gives people immediate access to campus safety resources and the ability to report emergencies and incidents of concern. It can also do things as simple as submitting a work order for a light that's out somewhere on campus as dark spaces on campus can be a risk.

"Our annual security report will come out Oct. 1 and will be disseminated through an e-mail to all university employees and students,” Smith said. “I encourage everyone to read through the report to learn more about the resources we have available.”

Williams said the work of Public Safety and Student Counseling's success in identifying risk early and mitigating it are cornerstones of campus safety at UNG.

"At UNG we have the Behavioral Intervention Team that puts those pieces together in hopes of identifying and mitigating something before it happens," Williams said. "I'm a firm believer that the recipe for disaster is someone having a mental health crisis and gaining access to a weapon. We cannot let those ingredients mix."

UNG Public Safety officers take 50 classroom hours of mental health training and response.

“We are committed to properly recognizing and responding to mental health crisis situations. We have implemented training programs, policies and procedures to assist our police officers respond to a mental health crisis,” Williams said.