1 2024 ANNUAL SECURITY REPORT About the Clery Act Choosing a post-secondary institution is a significant decision for students and their families. Along with academic, financial and geographic considerations, the issue of campus safety is a vital concern. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (KU) recognizes this lifechanging choice's effect on students and seeks to provide a safe and secure environment where students can live, learn, and grow. Understanding that no community is free from crime, the University remains firm in its pursuit of an environment that is as safe as possible where students can learn, faculty can teach, and staff can support its mission. The Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, known as the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act), provides students and families, as higher education consumers, with the information they need to make informed decisions about college choice. The Clery Act (1990) requires colleges and universities across the United States to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses. Under the watchful eye of the U.S. Department of Education, all post-secondary institutions participating in Title IV student financial aid programs must comply with this Act to avoid being penalized with significant fines and suspension from participation in Title IV programs. The Clery Act is named after 19-yearold Jeanne Clery, who was raped and murdered in her Lehigh University residence hall in 1986. Clery’s parents, who believed the University had failed to share vital information with its students regarding campus safety, campaigned for legislative reform when they discovered students at Lehigh hadn’t been notified about thirty-eight violent crimes, including rapes, robberies, and assaults, which had occurred on campus in the three years before Clery’s murder. Their sustained efforts ultimately resulted in the passage of the Clery Act, a federal law requiring all universities and colleges receiving federal student financial aid programs to report crime statistics regarding crimes that occur on or near their respective campuses, alert their campuses of imminent dangers, and distribute an Annual Campus Security Report to current and prospective students and employees. Compliance is monitored by the United States Department of Education, which can impose civil penalties (up to $69,733 per violation) against institutions for Clery Act infractions and can suspend institutions from participating in federal student financial aid programs. Clery Act Compliance @ KU KU has a vested interest in campus security and the personal safety of its students and employees. The following pages contain specific information related to the Clery Act, such as campus crime statistics, as well as other matters of importance associated with security and safety on campus. Campus community members are encouraged to use this report as a guide for safe practices on campus and off campus. An online copy of this report is available at www.kutztown.edu/clery. The Clery Act requires Kutztown University to provide timely warnings of crimes that represent a threat to the safety of students or employees and to make their campus security policies available to the public. The Act also requires KU to collect, classify, report, and disseminate crime data annually to everyone on campus and to the U.S. Department of Education. Clery Act requirements fall into three categories based on the configuration of an institution: (1) Clery crime statistics and security-related policy requirements that every institution must meet; (2) an additional Clery crime log requirement for institutions that have a campus police or security department; and (3) Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) missing student notification and fire safety requirements for institutions that have at least one on-campus student housing facility. Kutztown University falls into all these categories.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzcxOTE=