SUNY-ESF Ranked 4th Safest Campus in CNY, 19th in NY SUNY-ESF Ranked 4th Safest Campus in CNY, 19th in NY

A good education and a safe environment are two tools needed for students to have the opportunity to be successful at school, including at college.

The small research organization group from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania called Niche took a closer look to see which U.S. campuses are controlling and maintaining safety on campus. Niche collected and investigated data from criminal reports and ranked over 1,000 public schools based on their research. SUNY-ESF placed 4th safest school in Central New York and 19th overall in the state.

“Knowing that you have good campus safety takes the burden off of worrying about something bad happening to you on a commute or getting from class to class,” said SUNY-ESF sophomore Zach Hill.

Niche gather documents and information about campus safety from the university’s police forces at public schools and student reviews from current and former students from the respective colleges. Some of the criminal reports included campus crime rates, rape and date violence rates in college residence halls, and alcohol or drug related arrests made on campus. Administrators from Niche say they obtained the reports and information from the U.S. Department of Education and the individual public schools using FOIA requests.

SUNY Empire State College in Saratoga Springs placed as the safest school in Central New York, while Molloy College in Rockville Centre, NY placed as the safest school in New York state, based off the results of the Niche report.

SUNY-ESF students say the university police team does a good job making them feel safe on campus.

“I think the SUNY police here are very helpful. If anything happens they are always there for you,” said Anthony Rice, a sophomore at SUNY-ESF.

“I do remember when I toured SUNY- ESF my mom and I saw the University Police vehicles on campus and my mom saw them go multiple times around the dorms so we knew I would be fine here. So I never questioned feeling unsafe because of their presence and the surrounding presence of Syracuse University’s police team, DPS, who sometimes works with the SUNY-ESF University police team,” said Monica Banghart, a senior at SUNY- ESF.

The SUNY-ESF University Police Department was unavailable to comment on the results of the study at this time.