Enhance the Student Experience with a Unified Campus Security Solution

University Registrars and Vice Chancellors are under increasing pressure to attract and retain new and existing students, including international students. Since 88% of international students say a strong campus safety and security program influences what university they’ll attend, (and international students represent tens of billions of dollars in economic impact) investing in technology like SafeZone has a high ROI. Several universities have begun to promote their culture of safety and their use of SafeZone as a means to distinguish their institution from competing universities. Registrars understand that when students feel safe, it positively impacts the student experience and university retention rates.

Astute universities recognize that parents often heavily influence the decision on where their son or daughter will attend University. Given this, universities are now beginning to proactively address parents’ concerns about safety to increase positive perceptions. Several of our customers have cited the positive feedback from parents when they learn about SafeZone. It’s rare that campus security teams can point to an improvement that so clearly demonstrates the university’s commitment to protect its students and staff as part of its overall risk management strategy.

CriticalArc’s unique safety and emergency management app, SafeZone®, is changing the way educational institutions are managing safety. By providing unprecedented situational awareness, the command and control software provides your team with a common operating view so your officers can view their position relative to each other as well as incidents, which enables your team to respond faster and minimize impacts. In addition, the free SafeZone app makes it easy for students and staff to summon help via simple tap on their mobile phone, enhancing the duty of care provided by your organization.

Whether a school lockdown, fire, or severe weather, a campus alert system enables you to quickly send emergency communications to students, faculty, and staff.  SafeZone is custom-configured to your university and enables you to set up a series of geo-zones so you can send targeted messages to impacted parties based on location or send a mass notification message across the entire university. This real-time security solution creates a safe student experience.

It’s common for universities to have study abroad programs in 100+ countries. In addition, professors and students participate in exchange programs and university officials travel extensively to attend various conferences. As part of their expansion programs, several universities are building campuses in regions outside their main campus. Campus Safety teams are turning to SafeZone to help them create geo-zones around the cities or countries where their students and staff travel,  to enable mass notification, provide visibility to incidents, and meet their duty of care. In fact, SafeZone is operational in over eighty countries worldwide by our customers.

Given the growth and expansion of Universities, Campus Safety teams are under increasing pressure to absorb incremental responsibilities with little or no increase in staff or budget. When faced with these pressures, college security leaders turn to technology to offset a shortage in resources. Our customers have frequently described SafeZone as a force multiplier that acts an essential component of their Emergency Response Plan. The ability to view the location, availability and role of each officer in the field enables universities to manage their large campuses and estates with small teams, yet still fulfill their duty of care to students, faculty and staff.