Are you prepared for Campus Safety Awareness Week at Concordia?

From September 25 to 29, Concordia is holding its first Campus Safety Awareness Week. It’s part of the new and ongoing campaign, Campus Safety: Be Informed, Get Connected.

“Safety is always top of mind for us at Concordia,” explains Roger Côté, vice-president of Services.

“Our goal is to keep students, faculty and staff safe by ensuring they are aware of our emergency procedures and who to call. Our new campaign focuses on a myriad of facets related to personal, property and campus safety.”

Activities during the five days will include booths where the campus community can get more information about being prepared in case an emergency.

Staff, faculty and students can also find out how to volunteer to be a member of the Concordia Emergency Response Team (CERT).

Plus, there will be two texting-and-walking-obstacle courses — with prizes!

Throughout the fall, Campus Safety: Be informed, Get Connected will also focus on IT security, bike and pedestrian safety, and support the ongoing consent and bystander intervention campaigns by the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC).

As part of the promotional materials, two short animated videos have been produced. The first aims to raise awareness about who to call in an emergency (the Security Department at 514-848-3717) and the second video encourages students to download the Alertus + app to receive emergency alerts from the university.

By students for students

“We wanted to have videos that would appeal to students,” says Rachel Nielsen, emergency preparedness officer.

“We teamed up with University Communications Services (UCS) and the Film Animation Program to seek proposals.”

This is the second time Concordia has hired students to produce videos to support a campaign. Last year, two film animation students produced a series of videos featuring fruit spokespeople to encourage conversations around consent on campus. These continue to be used as part of SARC’s ongoing outreach efforts.

“Animation has so much potential for exploration and, at the same time, it is efficient in storytelling and can carry powerful visuals,” says Ruiting Ji, a third-year film animation student whose submission was chosen by a committee.

Members included representatives from Emergency Management, UCS and the Film Animation Program.

“Working on the campus safety campaign videos, I wanted to bring out the power of animation by making visually engaging short videos that are relatable,” she adds.

“Visually, I explored dynamic animation and rotoscoped backgrounds based on real settings on campus.”

Ji was assisted by two students: Emily Huang, a third-year student in film animation, who served as assistant animator and student Luhan Wang who served as assistant background artist and animation colorist.

Win a gift card from the Book Stop Boutique

During Campus Safety Awareness Week, students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the training session, “Emergencies at Concordia: What you need to know.”

You can register online to attend an in-person session (registration is required) on September 28 or 29.

Students will automatically be entered in a draw to win one of four $50 gift cards from the Concordia Book Stop Boutique! Faculty and staff have the chance to win one of four $25 gift cards.

On Tuesday, September 26, students are invited to participate in a texting-and-walking-obstacle course on the Sir George Williams Campus where they can also win prizes. Another obstacle course will take place on Wednesday, September 27 on the Loyola Campus.

Watch the two student-made animated videos about Concordia’s Campus Safety: Be Informed, Get Connected campaign, or take a look at the full schedule of Campus Safety Awareness Week events.