Penn comes out on top in security rankings for third year running

For the third year in a row, Penn was ranked as the top college or university in Security Magazine’s “Security 500” list, an annual security ranking of various corporations and institutions.

The ranking draws on data supplied by the University as well as public records. Key factors in determining this year’s list were security spending per employee, security spending compared to revenue, security officers per square foot of facilities and security officers per employee, according to the ranking’s methodology section.

Topping the list even once is “a significant achievement,” according to Jonathan Kassa, executive director of Security on Campus, a nonprofit organization that aims to prevent crime on college campuses nationwide. Doing so three years in a row, he said, demonstrates Penn’s “rigorous, consistent and evolving” commitment to public safety.

“Crime is going to happen,” Kassa said. But he added that the way a university responds to such incidents, however, is a key indicator of the school’s commitment to public safety.

Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said Penn’s recurring success in the ranking is to the “synergy of services” the Division of Public Safety employs — like using technology in conjunction with traditional police patrols ­— as well as Penn’s “high level of emergency preparedness,” exemplified by this summer’s installation and subsequent tests of the Penn Siren Outdoor System.

Rush also pointed to the 11th-place ranking that neighboring Drexel University received — an indication of a larger security “footprint” Drexel and Penn have created in University City, she said.

The ranking is significant for potential students’ college choices, especially in the case when a student is also considering another school with similar academic prowess to Penn’s, Kassa said.

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