Families, we shared this message with our students, faculty and staff earlier. We share it with you now for your reference. 

Dear AU Community,

Last fall, we updated our community on American University’s approach to campus safety and our regular assessment and review of our plans, protocols, and infrastructure. The ongoing safety assessment ensures that we have the right approach for our community and will determine if any new or revised steps are needed to address current or future concerns.

Throughout the fall and now into the spring semester, a working group of faculty, staff, and students has been meeting to develop the review, outline key questions, and plan specific actions for community engagement and education. They also have engaged with outside experts and practitioners to inform the work. The committee will continue to meet and support the assessment moving forward.

In light of AU’s upcoming presidential transition and the challenging political and international issues that the AU community is currently grappling with, we have decided to extend our safety review to the fall 2024 semester. The additional time will allow us to facilitate more community conversations, expand educational opportunities on these important topics, provide necessary bandwidth for the community to focus on these issues, and enable AU’s next president to engage with the community and the review when they join us later this year.

One of several topics within the review is the range of options available to the American University Police Department (AUPD) as part of their response to on-campus incidents, including situations involving firearms. To be clear, there have been no decisions to change our current practices. As we stated when we began this process, bringing the question to the community does not presume any decision or outcome or that we will change our current approaches. Further discussion and community input will be central to our ongoing review. We understand this question and its history generate strong views and we are focused on engaging and listening to our community on all aspects of this topic.

Moving forward, the components of the review include:

• Education—We will share information through community sessions about the current state of AUPD and campus safety measures. Sessions will include overviews of AUPD’s approaches to campus safety, its jurisdiction and procedures, crime statistics, and emergency management and preparedness. Additional sessions will feature insights from researchers, educators, and experts from the higher education law enforcement community on topics such as response times, training, trust, transparency, officer/citizen interactions, law enforcement history including challenging experiences that have affected different communities, and research on marginalized communities and policing.
• Community Forums—Community forums will be conducted in September and October to facilitate engagement and input from students, faculty, and staff.
• Survey—A university-wide survey will be conducted during the fall semester to gauge the sentiment of the AU community regarding safety questions.
• Project Website—A website will be launched for the fall semester to serve as a centralized repository for all the educational information, documents, and resources related to the review.
• Report—The assessment report will be produced in the second half of the fall semester.

The working group will continue its planning through the spring semester. If you have questions or would like to provide feedback, please contact the members of the working that are listed below.

• Robin Adams, director, Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI)
• Jennifer Axe, senior professorial lecturer, College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), and vice chair, Faculty Senate
• Jessica Bancroft, associate director of professional studies, Office of Graduate and Professional Studies, and chair, Staff Council
• Tirrea Billings, PhD student, School of Communication
• Jeff Brown, interim assistant vice president for student affairs, Student Affairs (SA)
• Vicki Browne-Moore, senior employee relations advisor, Office of Human Resources (HR)
• Ivan Claudio, student, Washington College of Law (WCL), and president of ADVANCE, WCL’s first-generation student mentoring organization
• Andrew Ferguson, professor of law, WCL
• John Firman, adjunct professorial lecturer, School of Public Affairs
• Dayne Hutchinson, assistant vice president for student engagement and success, SA
• Karen Froslid Jones, assistant provost, institutional research and assessment, Office of Institutional Research and Assessment
• Amy Krumenacher, employee relations advisor, HR
• Khouri A. Lassiter, assistant director, education and support programs for LGBTQIA+, CDI
• Nabina Liebow, director, CAS Leadership and Ethical Development Program, and senior professorial lecturer, CAS
• Marcus McNeil, president, Residence Hall Association
• Phil Morse, assistant vice president for university police services, emergency management, and transportation programs
• Thi Nguyen-Southern, senior associate general counsel, Office of General Counsel
• Ravi Raman, director of finance communications, Office of Finance and Treasury
• Denia Smith, undergraduate student and director of student security, American University Student Government
• Fitzroy Smith, assistant vice president for compliance, safety, and enterprise risk management
• Julie Zito, assistant vice president, University Communications and Marketing

Thank you for your participation in this important review. We look forward to further engagement as we continue the discussions into the fall semester.

Onward,

Bronté Burleigh-Jones
CFO, Vice President, and Treasurer