The Campus Safety Score is part of a multi-phased project that was initially launched as a response to Lauren McCluskey’s murder on the University of Utah’s main campus in Salt Lake City. In partnership with the University of Utah, the Lauren McCluskey Foundation (LMF) collaborated on what was then referred to as a “Campus Safety Index,” which was designed to provide insight into the overall safety of the campus community. The draft index has since been reframed as a “Campus Safety Score” (CSS), which seeks to offer a rubric-based approach to assessing safety practices and environments across institutions of higher education. The Lauren McCluskey Foundation is currently in phase two of the project, which involves actively seeking subject matter expert (SME) feedback from the fields of threat management, violence prevention, criminal justice, counseling, university administration, student affairs and housing, and insurance and rating companies. Once the feedback has been collected, assessed, and synthesized, the tool will be revised and sent out to our SME’s for review before moving into phase three, which will involve conducting a case study assessment of the tool’s implementation at one or more institutions of higher education.
Attempting to discern the safety and security of college campuses is not a new concept, given that safety is a common concern for prospective students and their parents. Some existing systems for assessing safety environments include resources such as the Niche Campus Safety Score, American School Search, College Choice Rankings, The Economist Safe Cities Index, and the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA)[1] 32 National Campus Safety Initiative (32 NCSI).[2] In particular, Niche and American School Search focus specifically on U.S. college campuses, leveraging crime data from the U.S. Department of Education and, in Niche’s case, student reviews to rank institutions. Alternatively, the Economist’s Safe Cities Index is distinct in its focus, as it evaluates broader urban safety across global cities, considering factors such as crime rates, health, and environmental security, which may contextualize the safety of campuses located in cities that it assesses.
For those looking to gain a greater understanding of safety on college campuses, it is essential to gain insight into the development of these tools and the factors that influence their assessment. Though the America School Search’s A-F grading system is based on a three-year assessment of crime data, it overlooks important factors such as student perceptions and campus safety initiatives, which would further speak to an institution’s overall safety culture. By comparison, NASPA’s 32 NCSI framework is user-generated, meaning that the universities themselves carry out the assessment internally. While the organization seeks to empower institutions to improve safety through a gap analysis, as a proprietary tool, its design is not fully transparent, and it does not offer insights to prospective parents and students. College Choice Rankings is also different as it ranks the top 50 safest large colleges and universities and also the top 50 safest small colleges and universities, drawing its data from resources such as the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. News & World Report, and the National Center for Education Statistics, among others.[3] While it offers a broad approach to university safety assessment, the methodology used in their evaluation is unclear. Finally, the Economist’s Safe Cities Index is not specific to college campuses, which limits its applicability to higher education and also may not reflect the dynamics of particular campuses located within those cities.
In contrast to these pre-existing systems, the Lauren McCluskey Foundation’s Campus Safety Score project is a unique initiative aimed at incentivizing universities to adopt best practices in campus safety. It seeks to provide prospective students and their families with insight into campus safety measures as they choose an institution. Additionally, it seeks to offer campus officials transparent and actionable pathways for improvement and ultimately, safety. The Campus Safety Score is intentionally designed to emphasize best practices in preventive safety measures. It aims to be tailored to the unique safety challenges of college campuses, including Title IX compliance and student-specific victim services. As a dedicated safety metric, the Campus Safety Score seeks to prioritize actionable improvements over general institutional rankings. Through this proactive approach, the project seeks to drive institutional change by recognizing universities for adopting best practices in threat assessment, victim support, and response training.
To assess campus safety, four primary components comprise the assessment tool, these include: campus policies, procedures, and training; campus safety culture; local area crime data; and community member perceptions. In its current format, each assessment category of the Campus Safety Score is further broken down into distinct areas of evaluation, with each of the four primary categories weighted differently and drawing from various data sources. To help enhance the tool’s ease of use, we seek to effectively incorporate operational definitions that align with its different components to mitigate inconsistencies in its application. Through the incorporation of cultural aspects and community member perceptions, the Campus Safety Score attempts to capture qualitative elements that are often overlooked by more quantitative data-driven systems, which makes it a hybrid of proactive and outcome-based metrics.
Jill McCluskey speaks to 2KUTV about the Campus Safety Score
Shaping a Safer Future: How Expert Feedback is Refining the Campus Safety Score
Subject matter experts from key fields have been pivotal in shaping this innovative tool. Their feedback has reinforced the need for tool transparency and accuracy. Of note, numerous participants have made the case that the finalized tool needs to ensure that data and policy reporting are not only current but also reflective of actual policy implementation, because what is on paper and how it is carried out in practice can often fall out of alignment. Experts have also stressed the importance of contextualizing scores to prevent misinterpretation, ensuring that institutions of varying sizes, locations, and resources are appropriately assessed, and that members of the public are not lulled into a false sense of security. By incorporating diverse SME perspectives, the Campus Safety Score can be positioned to offer a comprehensive view of campus safety, thereby fostering a more holistic assessment of an institution’s safety culture.
By prioritizing institutional improvement over rankings, experts have offered insight on how to overcome the potential for implementation and promotion challenges. Emerging themes include the need to balance self-assessment with third-party implementation, as well as public disclosure with institutional buy-in. In this regard, the Campus Safety Score should seek to encourage universities to embrace best practices while avoiding resistance or implementing tactics that seek to “game the system.” In referencing challenges associated with prior tool usage, they have advocated for the need to capture more nuanced, actionable data—such as specific reasons why individuals feel safe or unsafe and awareness of available resources—to help universities better identify and address gaps in policies, training, or victim support services.
One clearly identified benefit of the Campus Safety Score that has been highlighted is the tool’s capacity to help organizational units and leaders advocate for resources, such as increased staffing or enhanced prevention programs, by clearly identifying deficiencies. Interestingly, preliminary SME feedback also suggests that the Campus Safety Score may have the capacity to provide insurance companies with valuable insights into institutional risk, enabling them to adjust premiums and offer financial incentives that reward universities for investing in robust campus safety measures. In addition to this, numerous SME’s have commented on the importance of the Campus Safety Score to be designed in a way that can address the distinct safety challenges faced by rural and urban campus communities, in addition to considering the unique aspects of both public, private, and 2-year and 4+ institutions. By incorporating metrics such as community relationships, resource availability, and community perceptions, as outlined in the prototype, the Campus Safety Score attempts to adapt to these contexts, ensuring that all campus environments receive actionable insights to address their unique safety needs.
Furthermore, community partners, such as law enforcement and advocacy groups, have also played a critical role in the development of the Campus Safety Score. Their involvement and insights have enhanced the score’s effectiveness by ensuring it reflects real-world safety dynamics, fosters collaboration, and supports victim-centered practices. For example, law enforcement and safety professionals have helped identify gaps and challenges in crime reporting, offered insights into policing dynamics that vary not only across state borders but also across campus types and locations, and have been uniquely suited to discuss how community standards and campus safety practices align. Advocacy groups and counseling professionals, such as those focused on relationship violence, sexual assault, and stalking, have aided the project in providing insight into best practices related to trauma-informed response needs as well as offered guidance on cultural dynamics. Together, these community partners have helped to ground the Campus Safety Score in real-world conditions and further ensure that the score reflects diverse perspectives, prevents institutional insularity, and promotes accountability.
Measures of Success
With a draft Campus Safety Score developed, the success of phase two involves the completion of a minimum of 35 SME interviews, the synthesis of their feedback into the tool, and the creation of detailed rubrics specific to each of the four assessment areas, along with operational definitions that provide clear criteria for assessment and metric transparency. Once this has been completed, we will seek to re-engage the study’s SME’s by providing them with a progress update and the revised draft of the assessment tool. To date, all the SMEs solicited have indicated their interest in reviewing the Campus Safety Score once revisions have been made. This is a clear testament to their interest in this project and their mutual interest in safety on college campuses. To state that the research team is grateful for the time the SME’s have spent on this work would be an understatement; it is because of their expert-level insight that the Campus Safety Score will be a robust tool that supports enhanced safety practices on college campuses.
As the summer transitions into fall, the remaining twelve interviews will be completed. With feedback assessments underway, we are on schedule to complete phase two of this process before the end of 2025. Through the expert feedback obtained during the course of this project, the Campus Safety Score stands poised to redefine how campus safety in higher education is assessed and supported. By integrating actionable metrics, clearly defined and transparent rubrics, and a commitment to both quantitative and qualitative insights, the Campus Safety Score will not only help to empower prospective students and families with clear, reliable information but also help drive institutions toward meaningful safety improvements.
Looking forward to the next phase in the project progression, piloting the assessment tool at one or more institutions within the United States will offer further insights into the overall validity and reliability of the tool and its long-term standing in the campus safety space. As we move toward piloting the Campus Safety Score in 2026, this initiative promises to honor Lauren’s legacy by creating safer, more responsive campus environments for all.
[1] NASPA was formerly known as the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
[2] The “32” in NASPA’s 32 NCSI framework represents the 32 students and faculty killed in the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech.
[3] In particular, its data points are made up of four categories or “grades” offering a general safety grade based on the past three years of crime, such as theft, assault, arson, etc. It draws its “women’s safety grade” from overall metrics on Violence Against Women Act offenses, and also includes grades related to fire safety, party scene, and anti-discrimination. For more information, see https://www.collegechoice.net/choosing-a-college/safest-large-universities/ and https://www.collegechoice.net/choosing-a-college/safest-small-colleges/.
