This fall, UVA will debut a new app, Rave Guardian, designed to help keep students safe on Grounds.
The app is a one-stop shop that allows users to read safety alerts, locate phone numbers for SafeRide, Dean on Call, and CAPS on Call, submit tips to the school’s Just Report It tip line, anonymously text the university police department, and call 911. The app also has a virtual escort feature, where users can invite trusted people to virtually walk with them when they’re walking alone.
The Rave Guardian app was developed by a third party and sold to organizations that want to provide safety resources for their people. (Other customers include Cornell and the University of South Carolina.) The app came with an upgrade to UVA’s emergency alert software and costs the school’s emergency management office around $7,800 annually. Downloading the app is not required for students, but it is encouraged. Users will need a virginia.edu email address to log in.
According to Sergeant Ben Rexrode of UPD, the app is anonymous. UPD does not know who is using the app unless the user allows, such as identifying themselves when reporting a tip. Rexrode did clarify that in an emergency situation, the police are able to ping users’ locations, just like when someone calls 911.
“We’re not able to gather data off of it, or anything for our personal use or gain,” Rexrode says. “We’re really just trying to offer it to the community for larger community safety.”
Student safety is a concern among students, parents, faculty, and staff alike. On June 29, a woman was sexually assaulted after falling off a scooter near the UVA medical center. On July 3, a woman was raped in the area of 14th Street NW and Grady Avenue, a popular residential area for students.
Abby Palko, director of the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center at UVA, says the app looks promising. “I think safety tools that empower students, particularly women, and empower them to feel confident moving across Grounds are important,” she says.
“At the Women’s Center, we are huge fans of having multiple options for students,” Palko continues. “The issues that we work on and engage with students on are really big, complex issues, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to them.”
Palko points out that due to the pandemic, 75 percent of undergraduates this fall will have never completed a full year on Grounds. Many students, women especially, share their locations with others while walking at night, but new underclassmen may not have people they trust enough to track them in Apple’s Find My Friends app or Snapchat Map. The new app’s virtual walk feature could help in those situations.
“Something we try to discourage is traveling alone, especially at night,” says Rexrode. “As a student, you’re sometimes just going to be by yourself at night. It’s not realistic to say never walk by yourself.”
When asked whether there’s more the Office of Emergency Management and/or UPD could be doing to increase student safety, Palko says that safety is a community issue. She encourages people to think about how they move through the university and city, and how they might contribute to community safety. “It sounds corny but it really is on all of us,” she says.