Campus Safety

Home Resources for Students Campus Safety

The following information provides a summary of the safety programs currently in place to respond to campus safety concerns and emergencies. UC Santa Cruz remains vigilant in our desire to provide for the safety and welfare of our community members.

Campus Emergency Website

For an overview of campus emergency response procedures and resources, please begin here.

What You Can Do to Be Safe

• Carry personal emergency contact information on your person
• Keep your contact information updated, especially emergency contact information, via your MyUCSC Student Portal.
• Be familiar with campus and college resources (handbooks, etc.)
• Be familiar with your surroundings and what you would do in case of emergency situations.
• Report behaviors/issues to University staff whenever you have a concern or observation about a safety issue.

University Police and Fire

• Professional police and fire personnel serve the campus.
• Police and Fire personnel have full powers of law enforcement
• Police and Fire personnel have access to mutual aid from the City, County, and State law enforcement agencies.
• The police department provides safety and crime prevention training for RA's, staff and faculty.
• For emergencies: Dial 911
• University Police contact information: (831) 459-2231
• Fire Department contact information: 459-3473
• Personal Safety Handbook

Kiosk Program

• Kiosks are located at main entrances to campus.
• Individual arriving after 8:00 pm must provide ID and affiliation with UCSC (student, faculty, staff).
• Guests to campus must have "host" who will confirmed desired presence.

Housing Safety

• There are standards for residential building access in place for all university student affiliated housing areas.
• Residents have either electronic key access or standard key access to their buildings; a separate key is issued for individual room access.
• Student housing is equipped with fire alarms/sprinkler systems for hallways and rooms/apartments.
• The University works to provide an aggressive residential building security program which is dependent on student cooperation.

Community Safety Program

• Community Safety Officers are assigned to monitor safety and security throughout the residential units and college housing areas.
• Community Safety Officers (CSOs) primary responsibilities: door security, enforcement of university policies, observe and identify local residential unit safety issues.
• CSOs maintain close contact with Police, Fire and Residential Staff, as needed.
• CSOs provide safety escort within the residential communities.
• Hours of work: 7:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. daily, 365 days a year.

Residential Staff

• The University has a set of well trained, responsive, and available professional and paraprofessional Residential Staff throughout all university affiliated housing units with the exception of employee housing.
• CREs (Coordinators of Residential Education): professional, live-in staff; many have backgrounds in counseling, student development, and crisis response/management.
• Resident Advisors (RAs): student resident advisors live on each floor with their peers.
• RAs are trained to respond to emergencies and other crises.

Communications

• UCSC has the capacity to broadly distribute announcements to all students via their email accounts or their student portal.
• Emergency update announcements are also made through the University Info line: 459-info (4636).
• UCSC.edu also carries emergency information on its home page.
• Students are encouraged to bring a land line phone with them to campus and activate their phone lines in their residence so they can contact 911 for emergencies or 459-2231 for University Dispatch. Students also access these resources via their cell phones.
• There are 19 Emergency Phones (Blue Lights) located across campus. The phones are in direct contact with University Dispatch.
• Cell phone access across the campus via four carriers: T-mobile, AT&T Wireless, Sprint, Nextel

Counseling Services

• Counseling is available for all registered students during the academic year.
• Crisis services are available Monday – Friday; call 459-2628 for specific hours.
• Night and weekend crisis counseling services are also available for residential students.
• Counseling and Psychological Services staff provide consultation, workshops, and presentations on mental health issues.
• Students may also access counseling services directly through off campus service providers.

Emergency Response Management

• UCSC has an extensive set of protocols in place for managing crises/emergencies led by the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) which is located at the base of campus.
• The role of the EOC is to coordinate decision making, deploy resources, develop communications, and other related activity during the emergency.