Campus safety has always been a priority for colleges and universities, but today’s emerging threats raise new challenges for those with safety responsibilities.

Since the advent of the Clery Act and Title IX, there has been some reduction in overall crime reported across the board on the campus level. However, many campuses have actually experienced a rise in violent crimes, including assault, robbery, rape, and abductions.

In addition to crimes on campus, it’s important to also take into account the vast number of crimes perpetrated against students and faculty off campus. These criminal acts are even more difficult to control, let alone enforce and prevent, yet they may significantly impact a university community.

Campus law enforcement does its best to be proactive, offering instructor-led education for students and responding to incidents as they occur. However, even the best campus police force can only respond to criminal activities of which they are aware, and they may not arrive until after a crime has already occurred.

The sad reality is that our kids are not prepared to deal with threats and violence on or off campus, and many schools struggle for a solution.

Add in the fact that today’s student population has little patience for traditional safety training programs. Students are much more likely to spend time texting on their cell phones versus absorbing critical safety-awareness skills.

But there’s a way to combine the two: Make that mobile distraction part of the solution!

Mobile learning…  By using today’s ubiquitous cell phones and tablets, campuses can deliver safety-awareness skills and training in a way the students want it, a bit at a time, using their thumbs.

Mobile devices are already at their fingertips 24 hours a day. These devices can deliver, reinforce, and sustain key safety and awareness best practices.

Most students have had exposure to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter by the time they reach elementary school. Their familiarity with this granular learning model empowers them to take charge of the information flow they need, whenever they want it and wherever they want it. It’s done at their pace.

Mobile learning allows students more time to gather further intelligence, and affords them an opportunity to examine and analyze that information from more than one perspective, building tangential thinking skills. A micro-learning (granular) model means students can break down content into manageable chunks. They can take education when they have breaks, making the time spent more efficient, increasing information retention, and, if necessary, providing accessible tools that are available at a moment’s notice.

Administrators can control the flow of safety information by offering updated content in short bursts or bundled programs.

Using these avenues for safety education will not only increase student engagement levels with critical personal-security education, it will also provide greater retention of that information – because students chose to learn… on their terms!

Mobile learning solutions, such as Defense Coach University’s College Safety Prep program, can become an essential component of campus security, for safety education, and real-time alert notifications.

Defense Coach University has designed, developed, and implemented a highly unique, mobile-first design into its student-centric safety training. Based upon a proven model of Recognize, Avoid, Evade, and Counter (RAEC), students learn the critical components of safety and personal security right on their phone or tablet.

Students, faculty, and staff alike are taught to recognize that in any threatening situation, whether alone or with others, they may have to become their own first responder – and be required to make the appropriate decisions to avoid or evade the situation, or to provide a “hardened” response if absolutely necessary.

Campus safety administrators now have an important new tool for their safety training. Mobile-first is not just a technology: it’s a culture, a culture that lives and breathes on every campus in America. Now there’s a way to harness this culture to improve overall campus safety.

Shrink the safety education gap at your school by evaluating Defense Coach University’s College Safety Prep program at no charge. Get a no-obligation, ten-user evaluation pack now.

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