University Branding Via Securitization

Abstract

This article represents a call to understand school safety audits as central to processes of institutional branding. It argues that reading safety audits through a branding optic helps to draw out their uses in providing support for the augmentation of techno-security apparatuses on campuses and to contextualize them vis-à-vis increasing tendencies to govern universities in accordance with business models of management. While safety audits are generally endorsed as necessary for helping university administrators ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff, the more critical reading provided here draws attention to their entanglement with administrative efforts to construct commoditized university narratives. This paper substantiates and extends research by scholars who make note of the ongoing configurations of educational institutions in accordance with intertwining military and corporate logics. The discussion begins with a review of research by scholars who are highly critical of this trend. Next, the paper offers an exploratory case analysis of links between documents produced by one Canadian university’s administration regarding a sexual assault on that campus in 2007, the undertaking of a universitywide safety audit, and institutional investments in increased security measures. The article concludes with reflections on the importance of counter-rationalizations to this relatively new model of university governance.

Sexual Violence at Canadian Universities: Activism, Institutional Responses, and Strategies for Change

“…While some of the chapters do touch on the growing neoliberalization of the university (Chapter 3 by Quinlan; Chapter 4 by Trusolino), future research needs to further explore linkages between campus sexual assault prevention as a means to enhance the securitization and militarization of the university campus. Furthermore, there needs to be acknowledgement that not all student and activist work around sexual assault is actually beneficial to those who experience sexual violence and some of these groups actively contribute to the securitization and militarization of campus (Gregory, 2012;Gray & Pin, 2017). As Julie Gregory (2012) argues, "future analyses must include explicit criticisms of the ways in which various groups accept, through activities that are overt or covert, militarizationcorporatization as necessary for ensuring student, faculty, and staff safety" (p. 80).…”

“…Indeed, some of the activism highlighted in the reviewed book requires critical reflection, most notably the METRAC safety audits discussed by Gunraj in Chapter 8. The safety audit has been mobilized by Canadian administrators to further their own brand by holding it up as a demonstration of their own institutional benevolence while doing very little to actually prevent and respond to sexual assault on campus (Gregory, 2012). Likewise, at York University (as elsewhere), the safety audit resulted in increasing security patrols, expanding the safe walk program, expanding the mandate of security officers, increasing the number of CCTV cameras, improving lighting and enhancing security communications (Shoukri, 2013, as cited in Gray & Pin, 2017).…”