Draft Presidential Campus Safety Plan open for public comment

To: UCSC Community

From: Chancellor Cindy Larive

Attached for your review and comment is a draft Presidential Campus Safety Plan that is intended to lay a foundation for transforming UC’s culture, policies, and practices to achieve a vision of safety in which all members of the community feel equally welcomed, respected, and protected from harm.

This draft plan was developed by the Office of the President based on input from diverse groups of University of California stakeholders, reports from the campus safety task forces, participants in the campus safety symposia held earlier this spring, and numerous conversations with students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

I encourage you to share feedback, questions or comments on the Presidential Campus Safety Plan through the 30-day period from June 1 to June 30 by sending an email to pco@ucsc.edu. Comments from our campus will be collated and provided to the Office of the President for integration with the systemwide feedback. This feedback will be considered in advance of President Drake issuing a final UC-wide plan this summer.

Separately, the University of California has been engaged in a review and public comment period for the systemwide policing and administrative policies, sometimes referred to as the Gold Book. Comments were due by May 31, 2021. The review was required by UC policy, previous task force recommendations, and recent state legislative changes. These are two separate public comment periods for two different documents. It is important to note the review process does not preclude UC from making significant, long-term changes to the Gold Book through the Presidential Campus Safety Plan.

This draft Presidential Campus Safety Plan for the system does not take the place of the ongoing work on our campus to create lasting change. I look forward to receiving the recommendations of the UCSC Campus Safety Community Advisory Board (CAB) as they are finalized and to communicating broadly about the work of our campus in response to the CAB’s recommendations.

President Drake and I send our deep thanks to everyone for their valuable contributions to this important ongoing work, both at the system level and specifically at UC Santa Cruz. We especially appreciate your engagement during this time with multiple competing priorities and deadlines.