Lexie Shadix, Campus Carrier deputy news editor
College campuses are not exempt from crime. In 2021, the Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety from the Institute of Education Sciences showed that there had been 27,300 criminal incidents on US college campuses reported in 2019.
“I think anytime you bring together this many humans living in the space and doing community together, there will be incidents that happen,” Michael McElveen, assistant vice president for student affairs, said.
Berry, despite its small size, does not overlook the potential dangers that could come to students. From its police department to its health center, the college continues to work to ensure that its students can learn and grow in a safe campus environment.
Furthermore, Berry is currently working on renovating the fire alarm systems across campus to integrate an emergency notification system inside of building spaces. The emergency notification system has four outdoor siren locations, and these are activated, most often, for tornado warnings. The system also has pre-injected messages built into it and can be activated to sound these alarms as well.
“It is built and designed that we could activate it for an immediate armed intruder notification,” Chief of Police Ryan Chesley said. “That same siren activates [and] what changes is the tone and the message that goes out. Instead of telling you it’s a tornado warning, it tells you there’s an active assailant that’s been seen on campus and it provides different guidance. We’re able to add this technology to the fire system because it uses the same speakers and strobes. I think we have, on campus, about 10 or 12 now that we have an internal integration.”
Some buildings on campus are also fitted with automated external defibrillators (AEDs). There is one in Hermann, Krannert and the Cage. However, no specific department officially administers their distribution and the buildings with an AED have it because of a building specific initiative, which was responsible for the one in Hermann and Krannert, or necessity, which is the reason there is one in the Cage. However, the Berry College Police Department (BCPD) officers carry AEDs, first aid kits and have been to, or are scheduled to go to, first responder training.
“Institutionally, just having a police department is a major advantage,” Chesley said. “The department combines a combination of physical feet on the ground patrol, with an approach that leverages technology too. We have this sort of layered approach to security.”
Along with a police force, Berry has security cameras throughout the campus and license plate recognition software at the main entrance.
“As long as I’ve worked here, there has been a gatehouse of some kind,” Chesley said. “[There used to be] a gigantic flood light on the ground and it was a reflective decal [on the car]. When a car drove up the driveway, you could see the reflection of the decal and that’s how you sort of knew that it was going to be a Berry person. We’ve got a little more [technological] and we use our FID technology to read that and verify all that for us now.”
There have been times when the gate potentially deterred someone from entering campus.
One of the AEDs that can be found around campus.
“I have been in the Welcome Center and have seen people pull up to the gate who met that piece of gate and turned around, left campus and never came back,” Chesley said. “You have to ask yourself, ‘If that person had legitimate business here, why didn’t they turn around and come back through the other way?’ If the gate hadn’t been there would that person have come [in] and would they have done that for some sort of malicious purpose? I think it’s important, it’s that first layer of security and deterrence.”
Everyone who goes through the gate is seen on camera entering the premises. This can work to deter people from coming in and doing harmful things because they realize they have been seen already.
There are also emergency alarm stations that students or staff can use to call for help. They are located in every elevator on campus, in the parking lots and along pedestrian paths, such as Viking Trail.
Berry not only works to ensure that its students are physically safe, but it also provides resources, such as the Counseling Center, to help students maintain their mental health and help them in times of a mental crisis.
The Counseling Center is equipped to see students with a range of mental health issues, whether that is depression, anxiety, relationship issues or trauma.
“We do individual counseling in a way that we work on a shorter-term model,” Director of Counseling Carley Price said. “We don’t have a session limit, but we try to work towards a goal, [and] we do individual counseling for that.”
The center is also working to offer group therapy.
“We are working on developing a group program that we should start to launch this semester,” Price said. “Some of those groups will be ‘DBT’ (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skills groups, so like emotion regulation and things like that. [There will also be] some more topic specific groups, like a group for anxiety and a group to work on nurturing self-esteem and self-worth.”
Students can call the center to make an appointment in advance or book a “same-day” session for an emergency.
“Those sessions are offered every day,” Price said. “One counselor will hold a block of time in their schedule and the same day session is just a 30-minute session that is very specific for anything that may have come up that needs [addressing] immediately.”
The Counseling Center works with various groups, such as BCC classes, to provide training on how to help those struggling with mental health.
“We had a grant that finished up this fall where we trained over 1,100 faculty, staff and students in QPR [Question, Persuade, Refer, a type of suicide prevention training],” McElveen said.
The center has recently added interns who work alongside fully licensed counselors to offer more support to students. One of the center’s interns is currently hosting a mind-body meditation on Tuesdays at 8:30 in the Cage that any student is welcome to attend.
“No matter what you’re going through, there’s no issue that’s too big or too small for counseling,” Price said. “The worst-case scenario is that you’re not going to like the person, and you can try another one. So definitely always feel like you can reach out to the counseling center.”
Another layer of campus security is resident assistants.
“I work with Residence Life, and we have on call staff, 24-hours a day, who work in collaboration with campus police in our office as a resource for students after hours,” Lindsey Norman, associate dean of students, said.
They can help students adjust to college life, provide them with resources and talk to them when the Counseling Center is closed.
Berry students can also take various steps to inform themselves about how to stay safe on campus. They can attend workshops, register in the self defense course Berry offers and utilize various security related resources on campus, many of which they are informed about at Viking Venture. One of the programs Berry has offered in the past has been bystander intervention training.
“They have red dots on campus, and red dots are where crimes have occurred,” McElveen said. “By some intervention you’re trying to bring in more green dots, and green dots are where there was a bystander that intervened and prevented something from happening. That could be that they distracted, denied, got help or did something to directly engage in whatever [was happening] to minimize or prevent the red dot.”
The training tries to shift the culture into one in which people work to prevent crimes from happening and build a safe community together.
Ultimately, one of the main things that students can do to ensure a safe campus is stay aware of their surroundings. Incidents will occur as it is impossible to ensure a completely safe campus. Berry has maintained a relatively secure campus and is continually working to advance its safety measures. In case of an emergency, students should call the BCPD at (706)-236-2262.
“The great thing about calling the campus police, and they can dispatch 911, is they’re going to know where you are on campus better [compared to off-campus police],” McElveen said. “[If] you’re describing a location, like a specific building on campus, they’ll be able to identify it specifically and get emergency services there as quickly as possible.”