The MSU police, Title IX, Residence Life and Housing and the Counseling Center all have policies regarding safety and security of every student enrolled at MSU, which these departments work together to reinforce and implement.

Residence Life and Housing director Kristi Schulte emphasizes how the groups work together to keep the students safe.

“We work with Title IX and university police to both review the processes that we have in place and also so they have opportunities to practice response with emergencies. It is impossible to practice every single scenario so we really aim to help build a set of skills,” Schulte said. “That is something that we spend a significant amount of time with our team working on from a training and development perspective as well. So that we are always maintaining a sense of awareness about the importance of safety and security on campus.”

Title IX is a federal law that states that universities that receive any federal funding cannot discriminate against faculty, staff or students based on sex.

Director and coordinator of Title IX Laura Hetrick prioritizes reports that possibly contain discrimination.

“My primary responsibilities as director and coordinator of Title IX is that I handle any reports that come into the university that states that there could be a possibility of discrimination based on sex. So mainly looking at sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, dating violence, domestic violence, any issues like that,” Hetrick said.

In the past week the MSU police department has reported two sexual assaults as part of the Clery Act. The Clery Act is a federal act that requires a university to report all of its crime statistics.

“The university will either use a timely warning or an emergency notification. A timely warning is intended to inform the campus of a reported activity that could impact the campus community and emergency notifications are intended for a significant health or safety concern,” Schulte said.

Texas has another safety measure involving Title IX called Senate Bill 212.

“Senate Bill 212 is a law that requires anybody who works for the university, faculty or staff, if they are told about an incident or find out through email or anything like that, that could possibly be Title IX that involves a student, then they have to report it to my office. So if someone is wanting to report, they can always go to faculty or staff and they’re going to get them to me,” Hetrick said.

There are policies set for student guests regarding housing. The policies vary between the apartments and residence halls because the apartments are a more independent living space than the residence halls.

“Students are accountable for their guests, we have a process for them to sign in their guests in the evening. Students are expected to be with their guests, escorts their guests and be accountable for their guests’ behavior,” Schulte said.

All enrolled students have access to state mental health resources. The residence life and housing staff work with the university counseling center if a student is in a crisis.

“The university counseling center has crisis hours in the events of something that might be more immediate versus how long it takes to schedule and regular appointment, in addition, our on-call staff have access to after-hour sources in needed from the community, we work with university police to help assess if a student needs a hospitalization or safety planning, whatever it takes for them to be safe for the evening,” Schulte said.

Schulte encourages students to register for the TimelyCare app where telehealth services are available.

“There is a feature in the app called Talk Now. While it is not therapy or long-term counseling, the feature connects students with licensed professionals who can give around 20 minutes of coaching to calm their nerves or to just talk through a situation and how to handle it,” Schulte said.

Hetrick encourages anybody on campus to report any incident Title IX can help with, even if they have little information.

“I would just encourage anybody on campus, faculty, staff or students, that if you are concerned or you think that a time on an incident may have happened, to go ahead and report it. If you don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, that’s okay, because we may already have some pieces, but we will always take some more,” Hetrick said.

Students can contact the following departments if they need help or have tips.

Title IX form is at msutexas.edu/titleix
Residence life and housing 940-397-4217.
University police 940-397-4239.
MSU counseling center 940-397-4618.