CSU police, residence hall staff, Support and Safety Assessment, and the Women and Gender Advocacy Center are among university groups that provide safety and crime prevention educational programs in a variety of settings.

General university educational programs include fire safety, personal safety, interpersonal violence prevention, alcohol and drug awareness, and computer crimes. Many programs can be tailored to fit the needs of the audience. Interpersonal violence trainings include information about the crimes of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

For more information about educational, outreach and events related to interpersonal violence, or to request a program contact:

CSU Police Department
(970) 491‐6425
750 Meridian Avenue – Green Hall (at the corner of Laurel Street and Meridian Avenue)
Police.colostate.edu

Title IX Programs and Gender Equity
(970) 491-1715
123 Student Services Building (at the corner of University Avenue and Libbie Coy Way)
titleix.colostate.edu

The Women and Gender Advocacy Center
(970) 491-6384
112 Student Services Building (at the corner of University Avenue and Libbie Coy Way)
wgac@colostate.edu

In 2022 the CSU Police Department delivered 96 programs or presentations to 9,686 people. 

All trainings can be for staff or students. Each course is lecture based and can incorporate a physical aspect if needed for educational purposes. Trainings can be customized to accommodate groups who may need specific services. However, they do request all trainings be group based.

To schedule a training, it must be requested, and registration both of which are done via email. To request by email, you can email CSUPD_SEU@colostate.edu or the crime prevention officer.

All trainings are offered year-round, and if a group would like a post training follow-up, that is always an option. However, they do not schedule classes unless they are requested

CSUPD training topics

Active Assailant Response Series

  • Active Assailant Response 100: This course is about raising awareness of participants in many different and difficult situations. Curriculum includes tips on what to do if presented with various active assailant scenarios; pre-attack cursors of active killers in the United States; how to intervene early to help others connect with CSU resources.
  • Active Assailant Response 101 – Lecture and Lab: This course is about raising awareness of participants in many different and difficult situations. Curriculum includes tips on what to do if presented with various active assailant scenarios; hands-on practice in a controlled safe environment; pre-attack cursors of active killers in the United States how to intervene early to help others connect with CSU resources.
  • Active Assailant Response 200 – Stop the bleed: Curriculum covers how to recognize life-threatening bleeding and intervene effectively. The person next to a bleeding victim may be the one who’s most likely to save them.
  • Active Assailant Response 300 – Table top exercise: Based on needs and size of the class, this course is tailored to help university employees understand their response roles by realistically simulating an active assailant attack in a discussion-based, informal classroom setting. The exercise is customized to attendees and their university roles.
  • Active Assailant Response 40(0-4) Full DrillScaled to meet the needs of the group, these trainings are designed to give participants the chance to adapt and apply knowledge they have received in previous courses.

Additional Safety Training

  • Alcohol/Drug and Amnesty EDU: Introduction to the amnesty law to encourage students to call 911 during times of extreme need.
  • Safe and Legal Commuting on campus: General education on effects of alcohol on the body and alcohol laws.
  • Intro to US and Colorado Laws for International Students: Introduction to laws to help international students be safe and successful at CSU.
  • Welcome to CSU for New Student Families and Friends: Brief introduction on Colorado Laws, CSU policies and how to keep you and your stuff safe.
  • CSUPD and You: Introduction to CSUPD covering officer training, equipment and guardian‐ centric model of policing.
  • Realistic Safety Strategies: Provide the attendee with risk reduction tools to help with their self‐awareness, self‐defense technique, and empowerment.
  • Building Proctor Training: Emergency Preparedness
  • Panic Button Training
  • Site Assessment: Crime prevention through environmental design.

UCHealth and Colorado State University (CSU) began discussions of how to collaborate and bring coresponse to the campus in 2021. After roughly a year of conversations with stakeholders, data review, and planning, the program officially launched its one-year pilot in Fall 2022 with one full-time licensed clinician . The program was developed in close collaboration with CSU Police Department and CSU Health Network, with the goals of increasing access to the right care at the right time in the right place, as well as to support CSU affiliates during police contact. The program uses a primary response model, in which the coresponder rides with an officer to respond to calls for service and provide in the moment support. Additional benefits of the program include increased follow up support for students (both on and off-campus students), increased behavioral health training for CSU PD officers, and increased collaboration amongst university partners. 

The CSU Police Department also implements the following crime prevention strategies on campuses:

  • Regularly patrolling residence halls
  • Regularly patrolling all buildings on campus and checking doors and windows for security concerns, particularly after hours
  • Reporting facilities issues such as lights and door locks that do not work correctly
  • Surveying university grounds for security and safety issues
  • Presenting educational programs to students, parents, and employees about general safety, sexual violence safety, DUI enforcement, substance abuse, bike safety and education.
  • Offering SafeWalk, a CSUPD service that provides a security escort from any campus location to another campus location or a location within three blocks of campus, year‐ round, from dusk to dawn.
  • Educating the university community about proactive reporting options to connect people who are struggling with mental health issues or who may be a risk to themselves or others with university resources and alerting campus offices that can address safety concerns presented by these individuals.
  • Providing a comprehensive resource to all employees regarding university offices that can help them address people who present safety concerns.
  • Collaborating with committees and individuals across the university to identify and address safety and security needs for special events, new buildings, and concerns.

In 2022 Support and Safety Assessment and Inclusive Excellence held 13 presentations and 280 attended.

Support and Safety Assessment and Inclusive Excellence’s presentations are intended for all members of the CSU community and are offered on request. They were also held at the Professional Development Institute, a continuing education opportunity for CSU employees.

Tell Someone: How to report to the university if you are concerned about safety or mental health – your own or someone else’s TellSomeone.Colostate.edu.

Bias Reporting: How to report information about in incident of bias. Reports are reviewed by the Bias Assessment Team https://biasreporting.colostate.edu/.

Threat Assessment, Student, and Employee Consultation Teams: These teams work to prevent, identify, assess, intervene, manage, and coordinate a response to situations involving students and employees that may pose a threat to the safety and well-being of themselves, other individuals and the university community https://supportandsafety.colostate.edu/consultation-teams/.

CSU Education Abroad holds programs related to departure and travel security. The intended audience is typically students who are traveling abroad, and also includes faculty who may be leading trips abroad and other stakeholders involved.

In 2022 topics included:

  • 10 region specific pre-departure orientation that focused on culture, CSU travel requirements and included a health and safety portion which covered travel safety and crime prevention.
  • 71 travel petitions were required of each student and asks that they research and document any health and safety information related to their specific destination.
  • 20 International Travel Oversight Committee (ITOC) meetings with participation by staff and students travelling to higher risk destinations.
  • 5 faculty leader trainings which were held individually and in groups to discuss managing student health and safety abroad.
  • 25 highly site-specific in country trainings occurred which covered topics such as parts of city to avoid, transportation safety tips and other location specific information.

Educational Programs to Prevent Sexual Assault, Dating Violence, Domestic Violence, and Stalking

CSU is committed to preventing interpersonal violence, and increasing awareness of interpersonal violence, as well as being a thought‐leader in helping other communities prevent and respond to interpersonal violence.

New students are required to complete Vector Solution’s Sexual Assault Prevention for Undergraduate and graduate student program, which is the university’s online sexual assault awareness and prevention program, which educates students on jurisdictional definitions of, and issues associated with consent, sexual assault, dating and domestic violence and stalking.

Students learn about consent, including how alcohol and drugs impair a person’s ability to give or receive consent, as well as how to help a friend, and how to intervene in a situation that might escalate to sexual assault. It also includes information about the procedures for institutional disciplinary action in cases of alleged dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, as well as the procedures a victim should follow if one of these crimes has occurred.

New employees are required to complete Vector Solution’s Preventing Harassment and Discrimination Training program, which includes jurisdictional definitions of, and issues associated with consent, sexual assault, dating and domestic violence and stalking in addition to information regarding discrimination and harassment. It also includes information about the procedures for institutional disciplinary action in cases of alleged dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, as well as the procedures a victim should follow if one of these crimes has occurred. 

Included in both the employee and student modules is robust information regarding safe and positive options for bystander intervention. The modules provide students and employees with realistic sexual assault and relationship violence scenarios to help them identify problematic situations and practice intervention strategies. The scenarios escalate through each of four scenes, each getting increasingly problematic.

Students and employees are then asked which scene they started to feel uncomfortable with the behaviors, how they would feel about doing something to address this situation, and what they would do to intervene. Students and employees are provided with a range of intervention options and a toolbox of skills to practice increasing their confidence as bystanders. Students receive tailored feedback supporting their response and providing them with additional perspectives and strategies to reinforce intervention.

They key message is that it does not matter so much what students do in problematic situations, it is that they do something.

Also included in both the employee and student modules is information regarding risk reduction information. Learners explore many characteristics of health relationships, including jurisdictional definitions of consent, and how to recognize relationship abuse both in person and online. This programming helps learners identify strategies intended to stop relationship violence and abuse before it occurs by encouraging positive and health behaviors that foster health, mutually respectful relationships. The Women and Gender Advocacy Center at CSU is also available to offer in-person and virtual educational programs, workshops, and more to enhance the efforts of the modules. 

This primary prevention programming includes a clear statement that the institution prohibits sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking in its policies.

CSU’s Women and Gender Advocacy Center works to educate the university community about interpersonal violence, bystander intervention, primary prevention, healthy relationships, and more to prevent sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking before it occurs. This work is done through ongoing prevention and awareness campaigns and educational programs which are sustained over time and focus on increasing understanding of topics relevant to and skills for addressing consent, dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. This programming highlights the impact of changing of social norms, risk reduction strategies and other approaches.

These integrated programs, initiatives, strategies, and campaigns are designed to be comprehensive, intentional to end domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault. These programs:

  • Are culturally relevant, inclusive of diverse communities and identities, sustainable, responsive to community needs, and informed by research or assessed for value, effectiveness, or outcome.
  • Consider environmental risk and protective factors as they occur on the individual, relationship, institutional, community, and societal levels.
  • Decrease perpetration and bystander inaction and increase empowerment for victims to promote safety and to help individuals and communities address conditions that facilitate violence.
  • Are offered in a multitude of formats (print, digital, in person, etc.) and to the full spectrum of university community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.).

The Women and Gender Advocacy Center reports that in 2022, they provided 68ongoing prevention and awareness campaigns or presentations that reached 4,324 people.

The programs from 2022 included:

Interpersonal Violence Programs: These programs aim to educate attendees on interpersonal violence such as sexual violence, relationship violence, and stalking, and how societal norms allow it continue. These programs help raise awareness to decrease perpetration. 

Consent: Help students learn about consent and better understand the nuances of what is and isn’t consensual. Colorado jurisdictional definition of consent is utilized in these programs. The SAFE model (Say it, again, firm, exit) is often used in these trainings and it helps participants learn how to be explicit with their wants, empowering them and promoting safety.

Sexual Assault 101: Attendees learn more specifically about sexual assault than general interpersonal violence programs. These programs help raise awareness to decrease perpetration.

Healthy Relationships: Help attendees understand what is healthy, unhealthy, and abusive in a relationship and how to navigate unhealthy and abusive behaviors. These programs help raise awareness to decrease perpetration.

Stalking: Illuminates realities of stalking behaviors and encourages participants to consider if their behaviors are stalking or cute. These programs help raise awareness to decrease perpetration.

Supporting Survivors: These programs aim to directly support survivors and coach others on how to better support survivors in their lives whether or not they know survivors are around them. Several versions of these programs were offered with topics regarding coping with triggers, navigating boundaries during a pandemic, workshops and discussions. The programs empower survivors. 

Masculinity: Discuss healthy and unhealthy masculinities and behaviors and help students to identify the difference. These programs address conditions that may facilitate violence. 

Body Positivity: Helps attendees build community, end harmful societal body norms, and reduce body shaming behaviors. 

Bystander intervention: Bystander intervention means safe and positive options that may be carried out by an individual or individuals to prevent harm or intervene

Among other topics, trainings teach learners about the “Five Ds of bystander intervention,” which are tools that can be used to support someone who is being harmed. This includes training participants on how to use a spectrum of different intervention options. The spectrum ranges from the most engaged to the least (while noting that any are helpful).

The Five Ds are:

  • Direct – directly intervene in a situation.
  • Delegate – get help from someone else.
  • Delay – after the incident is over, check in with the person who was harmed.
  • Distract – take an indirect approach to de-escalate the situation.
  • Document – if someone is already intervening and you believe the person causing harm behavior is escalated, document the situation.

These allow for varying levels of intervention based on the situation and the bystanders level of safety.

Bystander intervention includes recognizing situations of potential harm, understanding institutional structures and cultural conditions that facilitate violence, overcoming barriers to intervening, identifying safe and effective intervention options, and taking action to intervene (wgac.colostate.edu/education/anti-violence-strategies-and-campaigns/).

When it comes to sexual violence on college campuses, CSU believes that bystander intervention complements prevention efforts that focus on potential perpetrators (as they are the only ones, through making the conscious choice to not perpetrate, who can truly prevent sexual violence) and risk reduction strategies which focus on potential victims.

The Red Whistle Brigade: Through the Women and Gender Advocacy Center, students are trained to provide interpersonal violence education programs to their peers.

Victim Assistance Team (VAT): The Women and Gender Advocacy Center also offers confidential victim advocacy to survivors of interpersonal violence as part of the University’s response efforts in the aftermath of sexual assault/harassment, dating/domestic violence, and stalking. Students can access this 24/7 resource to support with needs like crisis intervention, support, and resource referral. The VAT hotline can be reached at (970) 492-4242.

The Office of Equal Opportunity offered a Sexual Harassment Awareness Training which discussed elements of sexual harassment. It highlighted information from various policies and touched on topics regarding discrimination, harassment, consensual relationships, reporting obligations and resources. This program helps raise awareness to decrease perpetration and address conditions that may facilitate violence. This training was offered 6 times in 2022 when departments would request in person trainings. Those 6 presentations reached 172 CSU employees, including student employees, and Associated Students of Colorado State University.

Safety information is available to CSU students and employees on the university’s safety site (safety.colostate.edu). During new employee orientation, employees are also provided with this link. Students receive information about the safety website during Ram Welcome. 

In 2022 Safety and Risk Services in partnership with many other units on campus hosted National Campus Safety Awareness Month programming throughout the month of September. Expo fairs coupled with in-person training sessions covering topics such as self-defense, reporting mental health concerns, overdose prevention and naloxone training, and bicycle safety were offered to students and employees to increase safety knowledge at CSU Fort Collins.

More information about crime on campuses:

  • The university’s safety website (safety.colostate.edu).
  • Emails from the university, which are received by all students, faculty and staff.
  • Printed safety alert bulletins describing specific crimes or perpetrators.
  • Social media posts to the shared CSUPD and Public Safety Team Facebook and Twitter accounts.