A suite of safety enhancements for The Ohio State University students and community members is now available as the university continues to pursue ways to strengthen safety on and off campus.
Protecting the campus community and keeping students, faculty, staff and families informed remain our top priorities. The following new tools help add to an existing toolkit of safety resources:
Stay Safe, Buckeyes is an online safety class that teaches students how to enhance their own safety through scenario-based exercises. Students can take the interactive course via BuckeyeLearn. Parents and interested community members can watch all 10 videos on YouTube.
Classes focus on topics most relevant to students who live and gather off-campus and include crime prevention, crime reporting, when and why the university issues safety notices, mental health, police engagement and the differences between where Ohio State and Columbus police patrol.
Portable personal safety devices that students can attach to their backpacks or purses and pull to signal a loud alarm. The Office of Student Life is offering thousands of these devices that can attract attention in the case of an emergency. This is in addition to the nearly 5,000 window and door alarms, safety timers and smoke alarm batteries that have already been distributed to students this year. Students can register for a pickup time online to get one of the devices at the Willie J. Young, Sr. Off-Campus and Commuter Student Engagement office in the Ohio Union.
Members of the Task Force on Community Safety and Well-Being worked with students, faculty, law enforcement, mental health professionals and other key stakeholders to acquire the devices and build the safety class.
Increasing access to Ohio State News Alerts – the new communications tool that offers timely updates to students, faculty and staff – to parents and families of students. These are separate and distinct from Buckeye Alerts. Instead, these brief, timely updates are designed to provide safety tips and information, health resources, timely traffic information and more.
Expanding the Office of Student Life’s Community Ambassador program. Another outcome of the safety task force, ambassadors – students who serve as off-campus advocates and focus on an assigned off-campus area to help promote a safer, engaged and collaborative community – is expanding in size and scope.
The university recently expanded Lyft Ride Smart at Ohio State into the Short North area along High Street. Program hours run 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. and the discounted rides are no longer capped each month.
“These new offerings provide students with additional tools and give parents and families more information about what’s happening around campus,” President Kristina M. Johnson said in an email to the campus community.
Other recent additions include increased private security and mobile lighting and camera systems to support police patrols in the off-campus area.
After the tragic death last October of Ohio State student Chase Meola, President Johnson established the Task Force on Community Safety and Well-Being to help identify and implement holistic solutions to safety and well-being in the campus area.
So far, 13 of the task force’s 15 recommendations from the task force have been partially or fully implemented. An overview of safety measures and actions, and how the university has communicated about safety issues, can be seen here via the Department of Public Safety.
The Ohio State: Wellness app is a resource created to help students build well-being skills, understand their options and connect to care more easily. Sharing the app with the students you instruct, advise or work with at the start of the semester can be helpful encouragement for them to explore resources early and get support if they need it. Consider using one of these sample messages in your early-semester communications to students and encourage them to take advantage of our newest feature, the Wellness Plan. They can use this proactive tool to consider how they will care for their well-being throughout the semester and build a game plan for resilience.
Become an active bystander and learn to address explicit and implicit bias. In this introductory webinar Aug. 17 at 11 a.m., we will explore some of the most common forms of bias and identify tools you can use as an active bystander to interrupt bias in daily life.
Since December, we have celebrated the introduction of safe, effective and free COVID-19 vaccines that have helped contain the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they remain the best way to protect your family, friends, colleagues and yourself.
In recent weeks, the Delta variant has rapidly become the most common form of the virus in Ohio – and across the nation. The Delta variant is much more contagious than previous versions of the virus, causes infected people to have substantially higher amounts of the virus in their system, and can be transmitted to others even by fully vaccinated people who contract the virus. Therefore, we are updating our mask protocols to enhance the health and safety of our campus community as well as to reflect updated guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Effective immediately, students, faculty, staff and visitors to all Ohio State campuses and medical facilities are required to wear masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. Masks continue to be required outdoors for unvaccinated individuals when they cannot maintain physical distancing. Vaccinated people are not required to mask outdoors.
Throughout the pandemic, Ohio State has adapted its actions based on new information and expertise from local, state and federal health officials as well as our own medical and public health experts. We will continue to follow this approach as we prepare for a robust, in-person experience in the upcoming academic year.
In addition to masking, the best way to prepare for Autumn semester is to get vaccinated as soon as possible. More than 73% of the Ohio State community is completely vaccinated. I know we can do even better – and to continue to combat this pandemic, we must do better. The vaccines have proven to be exceptionally effective at preventing serious illness and death, even when people contract the Delta variant. I urge everyone who can be vaccinated to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment as soon as possible.
As a reminder, all students, faculty and staff are required to report their vaccination status to the university by this Thursday, August 5. This data will inform our public health decisions, including when and whether we can consider easing requirements such as the testing requirements for students that were announced last week and the mask requirements I am sharing today.
Students, faculty and staff who are vaccinated and have reported their status can also enter the vaccination prize drawing for a chance at $50,000 in prizes. The first drawing will take place next week, with winners announced August 12.
I can’t wait to see everyone on campus this month – classes start August 24!
The Ohio State: Wellness app is designed for students but offers tips and guidance useful for all members of our community. It is available for Android and iOS devices.