Creating security-mindedness in universities

Security-mindedness in staff and students

Developing good attitudes toward security among staff and students can be a challenge. With a lack of awareness around risks, it can be hard to establish relevancy to them. However, a solution to this can be by assigning security roles to departments of staff and students. This way, they receive information regarding security from people that they trust while also being able to gather information and concerns that are specific to each department. For example, a medical research department may have concerns about access control to labs due to the threat of malicious scientific gain, whereas the art department may have greater worries about how their equipment is kept safe from theft. Having departmental roles in place means that these concerns can be raised and are more effective for the varying level of threat that each area of the university face.

On top of this, communicating well with staff and students to educate them on security is vital. From updated web pages on the matter to accessible training, increasing awareness will make them more mindful of security issues and how to deal with them. Also, carefully targeted communications will enhance how well it is received. For instance, the level of knowledge they have on security would widely differ. For one, a member of staff may know more about current security measures within the university due to working there permanently and having to take more responsibility as it is their workplace. In comparison, a student will typically leave after 3 years, therefore presumably having less understanding of the university’s security.