News By Amir Matthews

 #CAUSafe, #seesomethingsaysomething, #safetyfirst. Theses three hashtags were used on the CAU public safety X account and when clicking each tag each one had something to do with safety and different topics on safety in the public as a whole. This pertains to my beat because it has to do with public safety and it also helps me on topics for story ideas that could possibly come up later on.

 

 It was hard to find real Census data related to crime and public safety on colleges campuses and crime that relates to beat but what I did find was campus safety data. According to College Tuition Compare under the title of 'How Safe and Secure CAU Campuses?" that in 2023 there was 57 total incidents that year and the date shows that the action rate is 13.78 per 1,000 students on and off campus. A story idea that came to my head when I seen this was a story about what the date reveals and what students say. This is a good story for my beat because using real data that talks about the public safety on campus and combining it with how students feel would give me a story of what is shown to the public vs what is really happening and how theses numbers could get down to 0.  https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/edu/138947/clark-atlanta-university/campus-safety/

 The first trend or future projection is the increased use of technology for safety. Due to technology getting better and better everyday in the future we could possible see facial recognition systems and even see drones being using for wide area surveillance during large campus events to help improve response times. The second one is shifting towards preventative safety measures. This is good because instead of reacting to incidents after they occur universities can predictive risk mapping where they can use date to help track areas where safety risks are the highest. This helps move from catching danger to stop them before it starts. The last one is making mental health and safety connected. This is because safety is not just physical protection it also has to do with students emotional well being. Implementing peer support teams and mandatory safety and wellness training for student leaders can help this problem. 

 I am doing a follow up on Jett Handy Campus Safety blog post about the recent break into a CAU freshman dorm at suites on campus. Jett talks about how he could tell the atmosphere was a little tense and I could feel that I had walked over there to see if I could find out what really happened because one of my organizations on campus wanted to work with the student affected to get him back on his feet and when I walked over I felt what Jett felt everyone was a little tense. I feel like this should have never happened to him or anyone at all.  https://jetthandynews.blogspot.com/2025/10/campus-safety.html