AMES, Iowa – Iowa State University has now begun issuing crime alerts through mass E-mails after internal auditors concluded that the school did not meet Clery Act requirements.
Initially, ISU would post crime alerts on the campus police Web site to inform the campus community of incidents on campus. However, a report from the Office of Internal Audit determined that the school must issue warnings through E-mails and other formats that do not require students and staff to search for information, Press-Citizen reports.
ISU began sending warnings through mass E-mail in the spring, after auditors discovered the problem during a routine review.
A lawyer for the university said school officials were not trying to hide crime reports by posting the information online; rather, they were hoping to publicize the incidents.
The report also warned that ISU had no “systematic process” to identify and train employees to report crimes to police as required by the Clery Act. Additionally, the university had no single person responsible for compliance and no written procedures for compiling criminal statistics, preparing the annual security report and updating the crime log, Press-Citizen reports.
University officials are in the process of creating a new team to be responsible for compliance.
