StateUniversity.com, a leading website for college information, has ranked East Central University No. 2 in Oklahoma for campus safety, based on incidents of campus crime as reported in 2011by campus safety officials. ECU ranked behind only first-place Murray State College in nearby Tishomingo.
Nationally, ECU ranked No. 44 out of the 450 schools included in the study.
StateUniversity.com analyzed crime statistics from those colleges and universities and assigned a safety rating to each school. Safety ratings are determined based on the number of occurrences of aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, theft/larceny, motor vehicle theft, forcible rape and murder on campus, and then are weighed based on the probability of each incident happening to each student, since naturally larger campuses would be expected to have a higher number of total incidents.
Violent crime is given more weight in the ranking system, and has a greater effect on the safety rating than non-violent crime such as theft.
ECU reported only low incidences of aggravated assault, burglary and larceny/theft.
The 10 schools in Oklahoma with the highest safety rating for 2011, according to the study, are Murray State College, ECU, Oklahoma State University’s Institute of Technology, Rogers State University, Tulsa Community College, Northeastern State University, Cameron University, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Seminole State College and Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
Nationally, the top 10 safest schools are Arkansas State University – Beebe; Louisiana State University – Eunice; the University of Virginia's College at Wise; Lake Land College, Mattoon, Ill.; Central Texas College, Killeen; Delgado Community College, New Orleans, La.; Erskine College and Seminary, Due West, S.C.; Southern University at New Orleans; Virginia Western Community College, Roanoke, Va.; and Edison State College, Fort Myers, Fla.
A StateUniversity.com spokesman said there is no apparent correlation between campus crime rates and perceived academic quality. The large state universities and prestigious colleges that are “household names” in many parts of the country are scattered all over the list.
To see the rankings, visit http://www.stateuniversity.com/rank/safety_score_rank.html. The Safest Schools ranking lists are presented alongside all of the underlying crime statistics for quick reference and comparison. Safest Schools by State lists are also available.