Dear AU Community, 

As the semester nears, we want to update you on campus safety resources and our work to address incidents that occur on campus. AU is committed to keeping our community safe and we depend on the engagement, involvement, and awareness of everyone on campus. We want to make sure you have our comprehensive safety and security information, which is briefly summarized below with full details available on the American University Police Department (AUPD) website. If you have questions, please email police@american.edu. 

AUPD provides 24/7 response to all campus properties for police, medical, and fire emergencies and coordinates emergency response with external agencies like the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. Victims of any crime are provided care and assistance throughout the criminal justice process and AUPD works with Student Affairs, and the Center for Well-Being and Psychological Services, as well as community resources. 

We are fortunate that American University is in one of Washington, DC’s safest areas. In Ward 3, where we live, there have only been 17 violent and property crimes through August 1 this year, which is by far the lowest in the city.

AUPD also offers numerous services for personal safety and group learning. The annual AUPD Safety and Security Fair will take place on the quad on September 24 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Safe Ride to Campus program provides students with a taxi ride back to campus, billed to their student accounts, and AUPD officers provide walking and vehicular escorts on campus for all community members upon request. Free self-defense classes are offered to all members of our community in both gender-neutral and gender-specific formats and customized crime prevention presentations are available to students, staff, and faculty organizations and offices. 

We have multiple safety communications resources that keep the community updated. AU Alerts communicates warnings and instructions via text message, email, social media, and other channels during critical incidents such as natural disasters, fires, and active shooter situations. The Rave Guardian app, available for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play, transforms your phone into a personal safety device, provides a mobile panic button that sends your location and identifying information to AU Police, and provides additional safety resources and ways to contact AUPD.

In compliance with the federal Jeanne Clery Act, information about campus safety is posted online and available at AUPD headquarters. The Policy on Clery Timely Warning Notices, Safety Advisories, and Emergency Notification outlines how we communicate about different categories of criminal activity. Reported crimes with no imminent or ongoing safety threat are published on our daily crime log. Campus alerts are sent for crimes that meet the imminent or ongoing threat criteria under the Clery Act. Our annual security report is published every fall and sent to all community members on October 1.

We hope these resources are helpful as the new semester gets underway. We encourage you to review the information and ask questions so that together we can support the safety of our community.
We also want to update you on our actions to address voyeurism and ongoing collaborative work to improve safety on our campus. In three reported acts of voyeurism over the last two years (one in 2022 and two in 2024), AUPD's swift investigation led to the arrest of the suspects and their removal from campus. Despite the successful resolution of these cases, the acts are concerning, and we are committed to working with the community to ensure a culture of safety for everyone. Voyeurism—like all other crimes—has no place on our campus.

At no time in any of the matters was there an imminent or continuing threat to campus safety. The acts appear to have no connection, as each one involved distinct victims and perpetrators, and each took place in a different location. Throughout each investigation, victims were provided support from campus services. 

For anyone affected by these incidents, campus resources are available. Students can contact the 24-hour AU ProtoCall line at 202-885-7979 or the Center for Well-Being Programs and Psychological Services at 202-885-3500. Faculty and staff can contact the BHS Faculty and Staff Assistance Program at 800-327-2251 or on the MyBHS portal. 

We know there are questions about how information for such incidents is communicated. As referenced in the safety resources above, we follow our Policy on Clery Timely Warning Notices, Safety Advisories, and Emergency Notification for communications about different categories of criminal activity. This type of voyeurism incident typically does not meet the imminent and ongoing threat criteria under the Clery Act that would lead to a crime alert. Each incident was reported in the daily crime log.

Moving forward, we are working on collaborative efforts to continue educating about our safety measures, promoting individual and community-wide activities that can help support our safety, and developing specific information about preventing voyeurism and protecting privacy. We are in discussions with community members, including graduate and undergraduate student leaders, about both this specific topic and broader safety and information sharing opportunities. We will be forming a working group to help move this important effort forward.
  
We will continue to provide resources and information as we prepare for the upcoming semester and support the safety and well-being of the community.
 
Sincerely,

Bronté Burleigh-Jones 
CFO, Vice President, and Treasurer 
 
Raymond Ou 
Vice President, Student Affairs