On August 13, 2020, Portland State University President Stephen Percy announced two key changes in the University’s approach to campus public safety: first, Campus Public Safety officers would begin to patrol the campus without firearms and, second, a new Reimagine Campus Safety Committee (RCSC) would convene during the 2020-21 academic year to make a comprehensive set of recommendations for additional changes to the University’s approach to campus safety, security, welcoming, and belonging. In that announcement, President Percy introduced a four-person Steering Committee for the RCSC (Jose Coll, dean of the School of Social Work; Vicki Reitenauer, faculty member in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Faculty Senate presiding officer elect; Ed Washington, director of Outreach and Community Engagement in the Office of Global Diversity and Inclusion; and Motutama Sipelii, president of the Associated Students of Portland State University) to help guide the work of the RCSC. Zachary Mettler, a graduate student in the Urban and Regional Planning Program, joined the Steering Team in June 2021.

As set forth in its Charter, the members of the RCSC engaged in a collaborative process to understand the array of safety needs of the campus community and to reimagine an approach to meeting those needs that reflects PSU’s commitment to racial justice and human dignity. The RCSC existed to develop recommendations not only for new functional approaches to campus safety and security, but cultural shifts that will call forth a new vision of a welcoming campus that promotes well-being and creates the conditions for genuine belonging for all members of the PSU community.

The full RCSC met 20 times between January and December 2021. Working through task groups and full RCSC forums, the RCSC concluded its effort with full consensus on a series of specific recommendations, outlined in the Consensus Recommendations section.