Addressing Safety at CRC

By Jason Newman

At CRC, as the LRCFT Union President at the college, I have met several times with Edward Bush, CRC’s new president, to discuss safety issues in the wake of the student shooting at SCC. Those talks went well and resulted in a planned Campus Safety Forum in early November sponsored by the LRCFT, the Academic Senate and the administration. The expressed purpose of the forum is to hear from faculty about their safety concerns, toward the goal of creating a list of suggested changes to the contract on the issue of safety.

I have also met with many students on the issue of campus safety. They are almost unanimous in wanting more lighting, more guides to accompany students on campus at night, more safety cameras, especially in the parking lots and parking structure, an increased campus police presence, and improved technology for alerting the campus community to dangerous situations on campus.

Faculty have been virtually undivided in demanding door locks on classrooms. As a result, I spoke with Los Rios Police Captain Chris Day about installing door locks. He indicated that is also one of his priorities.

To make certain that all faculty are informed of their contractual rights regarding safety, especially in the classroom, I sent copies of the contract safety article to all faculty. That section addresses how faculty may remove disruptive students from the classroom and the process that must be followed. If the student has been removed from class on more than one occasion or is being recommended for removal for longer than two class sessions, there is a more rigorous process that must be followed before the student is allowed back in the classroom.

As the CRC Union President, I sit on the college’s Health, Safety, and Facilities Committee, which met the week of October 5^th. The discussion focused on campus safety and the SCC campus shooting. It was agreed that the issue of campus safety would be a standing item on the Committee’s agenda.

And, the LRCFT and the CRC Academic Senate pledged to continue focusing on the issue of campus safety.