Recommendations from Our Campus Safety Task Force

October 18, 2016

UCLA Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

To the Campus Community:

In response to the tragic shooting of Professor William Klug on June 1, Chancellor Gene Block created the Campus Safety Task Force — a panel made up of administrators, faculty, staff and students — to help the campus better prepare for and, when possible, prevent life-threatening situations that could occur in the future. The task force focused on incidents of violence similar to the events of June 1, as well as other possible emergencies, such as fire, earthquake, flooding and environmental incidents.

Based on Chancellor Block’s charge, the task force made a number of recommendations that will help the campus avoid some situations and respond more deftly to others. In all, the task force developed 21 specific recommendations under four general headings:

  1. Conduct better — and more frequent — training of faculty, staff and students for life-threatening situations.
  2. Expand and improve emergency communications protocols and modes.
  3. Develop and implement protocols for increasing campus security especially, but not only, by adding new or improved locks.
  4. Create protocols for disseminating information about psychological and other types of support after an emergency.

Implementing each of these recommendations will require sustained effort. We have already begun to adopt some of them, and we will begin implementing others over the next few months. We will keep you apprised of our plans and our progress. Ultimately, our objective is to help ensure that UCLA becomes an even more prepared and resilient campus, and that all members of our community assume responsibility for their safety and that of others.

The task force’s report is available online. I encourage you to read it carefully. Questions and comments can be directed to Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck at adminvc@ucla.edu. In addition, I will discuss the report with the deans and Academic Senate leadership.

My sincere thanks to the members of the task force, and to the hundreds of members of the campus community who offered input. Your contributions will help make the campus an even safer place.

Sincerely,

Scott L. Waugh
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost