With instances of gun violence at colleges across the country, concerns about the safety and security of ASU's campuses have increased.
As of Sept. 24, there have been 53 school shootings in 2025, according to an article published by CNN. That breaks down to 27 on college campuses and 26 at K-12 schools. That number has looked similar this time of year since 2021, but those statistics have taken a significant jump compared to the decade before.
Tensions have been high since the shooting at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, when Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, was killed.
READ MORE: ASU community reacts to death of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk
Carson Carpenter, a 2025 graduate who studied political science, said he hopes calls for unity following Kirk's death will manifest in procedural changes to campus safety and security, aimed at preventing further violence.
"The police departments need a lot more resources," Carpenter said. "We need safety on campuses to be a first priority."
However, Carpenter's hopes for more resources for campus security are limited by the fact that public universities must largely fund their own safety and security programs, with little assistance from outside state programs.
"Higher education is on their own to fend for themselves," said Jason Weber, the crime prevention programs manager for the ASU Police Department. "All of our efforts, I mean, even the police department, the staffing and stuff, that comes out of the tuition fees."
The University's self-reliance for security funding can be contrasted with K-12 schools, which regularly receive state funding for safety and security purposes. According to a statement from the Arizona Department of Education retrieved by The Arizona Republic, state funding for K-12 school safety and security is over $128 million in the fiscal year of 2025.
That number may soon increase, as State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is requesting K-12 security funding be increased to $180 million, according to the same statement from the Arizona Department of Education.
However, Weber's funding concerns haven't stopped him from working to implement security improvements on campus. One security update that Weber is behind is adding stickers with room numbers to the inside of classroom doors.
Weber said the stickers provide an efficient way to assist students in alerting for help during security breaches like active shooter situations.
"In the event you are trapped inside of a classroom and you're calling 911, a lot of people don't know ... what room number they're in," Weber said.
Another security change that the University is implementing is adding physical locks to more classroom doors.
"There are some classroom doors that don't have locks," Weber said. "There are some that have the ISAAC readers, which is the card reader."
Adding simple physical locks to more classrooms can be beneficial in active shooter situations, because it decreases the need for fine motor skills, which are often the first thing to go in high-stress events, Weber said.
Security innovations at ASU expand beyond the current campus.
"We're working with the architects," Weber said. "Even before a building is built, we will meet with the architects and try to design security in that building."
While physical changes within buildings are a major part of security improvements, for students like Carpenter, a larger area of concern is the security personnel.
"We need more security guards, officers, everything, and a more organized leadership style with a lot of these departments," Carpenter said.
However, other students expressed a desire for forms of campus security personnel beyond standard police officers.
Jacob George, a senior studying political science, said instead of more police, the University should have "security firms or stuff like that, that are mandatory, that they take different trainings on culture sensitivity."
Weber was aware of the concerns of students like Carpenter and George, but he also acknowledged that the desire for more security personnel is a universal one.
"You ask any chief anywhere in the United States, and they're going to want more officers," Weber said.
Despite the ever-present demand for officers and personnel, Weber said ASU PD has been extremely efficient with the personnel it does have, which has resulted in response times that are "pretty darn quick."
Part of this efficiency comes from the interconnectedness of security and safety forces with other organizations both within and outside of the University.
Examples of connections include University police working with local police departments, as well as the Dean's office, said John Thompson, the chief of police at ASU, during an Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) meeting on Sept. 25.
READ MORE: Policing at ASU: How campus and local police combat concerns on campus
Connections within the University for security go beyond the Dean's office, as they expand across other campus groups as well.
Weber said these additional security connections are known as "natural surveillance" and include students, faculty, and even Walk-only zone Ambassadors on campus.
"Those are people that are out there with eyes and ears," Weber said. "We're using them to keep an eye out for bike thieves and scooter thieves, something out of the norm, because they're already out there."
At the Sept. 25 ABOR meeting, Joanne Vogel, the vice president of Student Services at ASU, said there is a need for additional focus on psychological safety and stability of students to keep campuses safe.
"We too have many different ways that our students can plug into any part of our system 24/7, 365," Vogel said. "Everything from low-level issues that might be troublesome to them all the way through an imminent crisis situation."
A focus on mental health is crucial in the eyes of students like George, who felt outreach in that area was something the University was not focused on enough.
"We have a mental health crisis," George said. "There's a lot of things we can do, and I'd say that goes into security, is investing in mental health resources, and that's something that I think ASU can do better as well."
ASU Police has utilized their own Real Time Analysis Center, which Weber said has been used as an example of leading campus security innovations across the nation.
"When a call comes in, they (RTAC) can zoom in and zero in on a certain area, so they basically can get on scene instantly, virtually, and keep an eye on things," Weber said. "They've really been a force multiplier for us."
These technological improvements allow for effective safety observation without needing "a uniformed officer on every corner across campus," Thompson said.
Above all else, Weber and Thompson both emphasized the need for collaboration and engagement across all parts of ASU in order to keep campus safe. Vogel also addressed ASU LiveSafe, which can build that safety connection virtually.
"We want to get out there, because we're all partners in keeping the quality of life here and keeping things fine," Weber said.
Edited by Henry Smardo, George Headley, Sophia Braccio and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporter at sluba@asu.edu and follow @samluba6 on X.
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Sam Luba is a Senior Reporter with the State Press, focusing on longer form news stories and breaking news coverage. He is a Sophomore studying political science and justice studies, and is a competitor with Sun Devil Mock Trial. He was the Editor-in-Chief of his high school news magazine. He is in his 3rd Semester with the State Press, working previously as a Part-Time Political Reporter.
