Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

At Central Connecticut State University campus safety is one of our paramount concerns. The University Police Department and other administrative offices regularly participate in emergency preparedness training drills and continually seek new and more effective ways to meet potential campus crises.  In light of the horrific tragedies at Virginia Tech and, more recently, at Northern Illinois University, this page presents information about the University’s preparedness to respond to such incidents.

The University also offers students, faculty, and staff access to the services of the Counseling & Wellness Center, the Employee Assistance Program, Campus Ministries, and guidance on workplace violence.  For more information, please visit these websites:

University Police

Counseling and Wellness

Campus Ministry

Human Resources

University Health Service

PUBLIC SAFETY RESPONSE INFORMATION 

• We have over 200 surveillance cameras on the campus.
• We have the capability to make email notices to the entire campus community and are exploring technologies that will expand our notification capabilities.
• We are working to develop a campus-wide speaker announcement system (Library and Student Center are first to have been installed).
• We have a full time PD staff of 23 sworn officers.
• The command staff of the police department are all veteran officers.
• All officers have received Active Shooter training and we have acquired appropriate weaponry.
• We have an incident Command Center.
• We have a threat assessment team that evaluates issues involving students or staff.
• We follow the State’s Zero Tolerance Policy for workplace violence and weapons on State property.
• Key personnel have had crisis management training.
• We will begin regular training for supervisory staff on crisis management.
• Procedures are in place to obtain whatever other police assistance may be needed (municipal, state, and federal).
• We are working aggressively to enhance our communication systems.
• We will be working, as we have in the past, with federal, local and state law enforcement on a regular basis to enhance their knowledge of our campus, including appropriate SWAT team training exercises with municipal and state officers.
• We will provide refresher training for all faculty and staff regarding how to deal with incidents of violence or threat.
• We had a recent risk assessment audit to which we are responding. The risk consultant has recommended and we are working on updating our building and grounds drawings and putting them in electronic format that can be used by emergency response teams.
• We will be updating all student and staff emergency contact information.
• We will be working with the Counseling & Wellness Center to address domestic mental health/stress issues and to expand staffing.