By, JORDAN GREEN, Editor-in-Chief
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In order, those are the numbers of murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, cases of incest and fires reported on Northwestern’s Alva campus in 2019.
“It’s a safe campus,” said Calleb Mosburg, Northwestern’s dean of student affairs. “There’s really no better way to state it.”
Northwestern officials published the university’s annual campus safety and fire prevention report in December, showing that relatively few crimes were reported on the university’s campuses in 2019.
The annual report lists crime statistics from the preceding year. Under the Clery Act, a federal law mandating that colleges and universities provide crime statistics and information to students, officials have nine months after the end of a calendar year to compile data and finalize information.
The report is usually published Oct. 1, but federal officials granted universities an extension for the 2020 report because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mosburg said.
In 2019, no instances of these crimes were reported on the university’s campuses: murder, manslaughter by negligence, rape, fondling, incest, statutory rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and arson.
No hate crimes were reported on Northwestern campuses in 2019, the report said.
The U.S. Justice Department defines a hate crime as a crime “committed on the basis of the victim’s perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.”
In 2019, officials said two instances of domestic violence were reported on the Alvacampus. Both took place in university housing facilities, though the report does not say which buildings the violence occurred in. No domestic violence cases were reported in 2017 or 2018.
One instance of motor vehicle theft was reported on the Alva campus in 2019, the report showed. No thefts were reported there in 2017 or 2018.
In 2019, two students were arrested on the Alva campus for carrying or possessing weapons, and eight were arrested for drug abuse violations. In 2018, no students were arrested on the campus for carrying weapons, but 14 were arrested for drug abuse violations.
No students have been arrested on the Alva campus for liquor law violations since 2017, officials said.
The report shows that 19 students on the campus were referred for disciplinary action for liquor law violations in 2019, down from 34 in 2018 and 45 in 2017.
No crimes have been reported on the university’s Enid and Woodward campuses since 2017, the report showed. Both campuses are commuter campuses, meaning no students live on the campuses.
While the university’s safety report tracks crimes committed on campus, it does not include information about crimes committed by or against students while off campus, Mosburg said.
“Anything that would occur on university property, things like that, we would have to count, but nothing that happens away from that,” Mosburg said.
Mosburg praised Northwestern’s faculty, staff and students for keeping the university safe.
“Our campus police do a great job,” Mosburg said. “Our housing staff does a great job. … I think everybody keeps a good eye out on campus. But, ultimately, I think with the people that we have – our students, our faculty, our staff – everybody knows the purpose of the campus and what our mission is. I feel fortunate we do have a safe campus, safe communities, including our Enid and Woodward locations as well.”