Balancing the Requirements of Responding
to the Clery Act for Study Abroad & Providing Information to Students and Parents Regarding Health and Safety Challenges During Study Abroad
Gary Rhodes
Associate Dean, International Education & Senior International Officer,
College of Extended & International Education
Director, Center for Global Education
California State University at Dominguez Hills
Note: This article is not intended as a primer for how to respond to the Clery Act for study abroad. It is meant to inform study abroad staff and students going abroad about the difficulties of Clery Act reporting and how those difficulties might be most effectively tempered going into the future.
During presentations with Terra Dotta staff at this year’s NAFSA Conference and in other venues, it is obvious that Clery Act reporting continues to be a challenge for study abroad staff around the country. A number of institutions have provided webinars and workshops to help colleges and universities respond to the Clery Act for study abroad. There is information from a number of higher education associations as well as the U.S. Department of Education that provide assistance on how to respond to Clery Act Guidelines. Terra Dotta has provided a system to make it easier for faculty and staff to provide information about safety incidents abroad that fulfill Clery Act requirements.
Before considering whether to respond to the Clery Act, it is important that you realize that all U.S. colleges and universities that receive any type of federal financial funding for the institution itself or their students have been responding to Clery Act requirements for many years. This includes your institution’s annual report as well as updates that you see about incidents on a regular basis in your campus newspaper and other resources. Your institution will continue to report to the Clery Act in this fashion. The question is how they will report for study abroad programs.
A few links to help provide background on the Clery Act that are not password protected:
U.S. Department of Education Campus Security Info:
https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/campus.html
U.S. Department of Education Handbook for Campus Safety and Clery Act Reporting Update: February 2011:
https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/handbook.pdf
NAFSA: Association of International Educators:
https://www.nafsa.org/findresources/Default.aspx?id=29159
NACUA Note: February 29, 2012:
https://www.princeton.edu/ogc/whats-new/NACUA Clery Act
There are other resources available, but those listed above will help provide an initial background.
One of the critical issues in responding to the Clery Act is to report only for locations that include a formal connection to colleges and universities that operate programs abroad. You should work with your legal counsel and student affairs and campus security offices to deal with sexual harassment, assault, fire-safety, and others issues. Have them support efforts for outreach about safety issues abroad and how to report and respond to incidents.
Many colleges and universities will find that incidents that occur abroad take place in areas that do not fall under any formal connection to a U.S. college or university. This could be a nightclub where students regularly go, a location where public transportation is less safe, or areas where trusted taxis are not available, etc. As a result, I would suggest that institutions bring together relevant faculty and staff from across campus to engage in a discussion about what data institutions should collect, what information should be provided to faculty, staff, and students to support their health and safety abroad, what actions to take to respond to health and safety challenges abroad, and what to report for Clery Act requirements.
In my presentations at both Terra Dotta University and the NAFSA Conference, one of the critical elements I presented was the importance of information sharing within and between universities.
As Terra Dotta has developed a platform for reporting crime and safety incidents, the question becomes what incidents should be reported and what to do with that information? Incident data will continue to grow as collection of that data becomes practiced and perfected.
The SAFETI Clearinghouse of the Center for Global Education will continue to develop resources made available through the Terra Dotta Community Library that provide models for providing necessary reporting information to students.
It is our hope that with the continuing efforts of Terra Dotta, the Forum on Education Abroad and their Safety Incident Surveys, NAFSA resources, OSAC, U.S. Department of State sharing of information on safety incidents abroad, the update of the Responsible Study Abroad: Good Practices for Health and Safety, and other efforts, the field will be better able to answer a question that we currently can not:
“What are the safety incidents that are impacting the more than 270,000 U.S. study abroad students plus other students going abroad on non-credit programs each year?”
The answer to this question is critical for helping institutions implement programs supporting student safety and providing information to students and parents on the most important challenges to help them avoid these incidents. We must enact policies and procedures that quickly respond to and help limit the incidents that take place abroad.
Nothing will help us answer this question quicker than collaboration and information sharing at and between colleges and universities and working with higher education organizations and companies like Terra Dotta. This kind of collaboration is critical if the field wants to move forward in this area.