UAH Named Nation’s Most ‘Crime-Rattled’ College, According to Website

Posted on: 1:36 pm, June 20, 2012, by David Wood, updated on: 06:23pm, June 20, 2012

The February 2010 biology department shootings helped put the University of Alabama in Huntsville on top of a national websites ranking of Americas 25 Most Crime-Rattled Colleges. The unofficial ranking, based on an analysis of crime reports, wasreleased Tuesday by the website The Daily Beast.

UAH spokesman Ray Garner called the ranking skewed in an interview with WHNT News 19 news partner, The Huntsville Times:

It is no secret that we had a tragic shooting incident on our campus in 2010, and that event heavily skewed this ranking, Garner said Tuesday. If you look at our overall crime statistics, you will find outside that isolated event that our university offers a safe environment for the thousands of students, faculty and staff that travel around our campus.

Huntsville S.W.A.T. team members rush to the UAH Shelby Center February 12, 2012

While taking a UAH campus tour Wednesday, parent of a prospective 2013 freshman Julie DiLiberty told WHNT News 19 she find the report ludicrous. DiLiberti says she has no qualms about safety in considering sending her son to study computer science at the university next year.

Looking around today, absolutely not, weve seen some police presence on campus just doing patrolsand we see the emergency call boxes and you certainly dont get a feeling of apprehension when youre on campus, DiLiberti said.

Incoming fall 2012 freshman Malaysia Denton said she agrees.

Its shocking, said Denton. I dont feel Huntsville is dangerous in the least compared to Birmingham or Mobile, places like that.

The website said it based its rankings on a system it designed to compare and rank per-capita crime in certain categories as reported by colleges to the U.S. Department of Education. The reporting period was 2008-2010, which included the period of a triple homicide committed during a biology faculty meeting on the UAH campus. A former assistant biology professor, Dr. Amy Bishop, faces trial in September 2012 on those charges.

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UAH Named Nation’s Most ‘Crime-Rattled’ College, According to Website

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