Richard Baker, Brent Amundson & Erin Gillen - ANU - CASE STUDY: The Australian National University’s Attempts to Enhance Student Safety and Well-being

Enhancing student safety and well-being at ANU

Richard Baker ANU Pro Vice-Chancellor (Student Experience)

Brent Amundson ANU Head of Security

Erin Gillen ANU Student Association’s Women’s Officer

Outline of talk

• Richard Baker - introduction to ANU –

getting policy and procedures right –

guided by some underlying principles

• Brent Amundson - Head of Security –

getting practice right

• Erin Gillen ANU Student Association’s

(ANUSA) Women’s Officer – engaging

student perspectives

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ANU background • 145 hectares campus

• 37% of our students live

on campus

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ANU background

Keys steps in ANU’s approach

1. Driving culture change regarding alcohol use

2. Providing high quality student leadership

training and support

3. Working closely with all Halls of Residents

(both ANU controlled ones and affiliated)

4. Focusing on well-being and health starting in

o-week maintained throughout each year

5. Coordinating University service providers and

student groups to assist 1-4

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1. Transparency in our approaches and

acknowledgement of problems such as

binge drinking, racism, homophobia,

sexual assaults

2. Learning community approach

3. Empowerment of students

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Some principles guiding our approach

to safety

Learning community

• Principle that you can always do better by

monitoring and evaluation

• Use research capacity of a university

– e.g. Centre for Mental Health Research,

– e.g. student projects from Medical School,

psychology, science communication, leadership and

geography student projects

• Nikki Sloan 3rd year geography student’s map

of fear of crime

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Under-grad student fear of crime - day

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Graduate student fear of crime - day

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Under-Grad student fear of crime - night

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Graduate student fear of crime - night

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Learning from good practice elsewhere

e.g. USA “bystander intervention”

approaches that aims to:

1. Alert students to prevalence of violence on

campus

2. Stressing a community of responsibility

3. Modelling effective intervention strategies

4. Give students confidence to intervene by

giving them opportunities to practice these

skills in realistic scenarios

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Getting procedures and policies right

• Public document on “Response to allegation

of recent sexual assault”

• Critical incident procedures

• Mandatory training on issues around

responding to allegations of sexual assaults

and domestic violence for staff and student

leaders in residential halls

• Lot of work to better plan orientation week

• Recently revised our liquor statute

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Security Manager Role

• Maintaining a safe and

secure environment on

campus

• Providing support to

students and staff

through afterhours

escorts, safety advice,

etc.

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Security Manager Role continued

• Operate and develop a team of security

personnel to work with the community - strong

client focus

• Sit on numerous committees including the

UniSafe Committee

• Liaise with Australian Federal Police to help

safeguard the campus against threats

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Challenges

• The need to change the security teams outlook on

campus to a more client focused approach as

opposed to one of strictly enforcement

• Existing perceptions/expectations of Orientation

week (O-week) and enforcing the new look week

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Accomplishments

• Community approach

• Creation of the Functions on Campus team

• Changes to the ANU Liquor Statute 2013

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Improved o-week

• Pre O-week planning with ANUSA

and key stakeholders

• Banned advertising of pub-crawls

• More non-alcoholic events

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• Elected representative on

ANU Students Association

(ANUSA)

• Support and referral service

for all women identifying

students on campus

• Member of women’s

collective

• Sit on ANU UniSafe

committee

• Sit on ANUSA Safety on

Campus committee

ANUSA Women’s Officer

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Involving students

• Training, consultation and campaigns

• Utilising student leaders at residential halls,

representatives on the students association and

other interested students to identify issues and

solutions

• Challenges:

– Student workloads

– Succession planning – many student leadership positions

are only held for 12 months

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Public lecture on affirmative consent (2014)

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‘Not a Wife Beater’ campaign (2013)

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‘Our campus: make it safe’ campaign

• Student led campaign aimed at reducing violence on campus,

and increasing feelings of community and respect

• Semester divided into key themes:

– Diversity

– Sexual violence, consent

– Racism

– Homophobia and transphobia

– Anti-violence messages

• Women’s Department has taken on the coordinating role for

sexual violence / consent weeks

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Ideal O-Week?

• Thorough O-week training for student leaders:

– Training following exams the previous year

– Online summer training and resources

– ‘N-week’ (pre O- week training)

– Covering sexual assault, domestic violence, LGBTQI*

• Increased reporting of assault

• Well-managed and planned events

• Events with a focus other than alcohol (eg. Night market)

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Thank you for your attention

If you have any questions/comments about

safety at ANU email any of us

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

or come up to any of us after this talk

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