‘When in Doubt, Reach Out:’ OEC Debriefs Annual Crime Report

The annual Loyola Clery Crime and Safety Report was released Sept. 30. While there are no striking statistics or major jumps or declines in the different categories of crime, executive director of the Office of Equity and Compliance and Title IX Coordinator Timothy Love shed some light on the ways students can feel more comfortable reporting crime incidents.

The Jeanne Clery Act is named for the 19-year-old college student who was raped and murdered in her dorm in 1986 in Pennsylvania. Her parents went on to advocate for campus crime reporting standards on Capitol Hill, eventually leading to legislation in 1990. The act was amended July 31 to add the “Stop Campus Hazing” provision.

“The University’s Annual Security Report is compiled by gathering policies, procedures and statistics from numerous departments within the University as well as outside law enforcement agencies,” Campus Safety Special Projects Commander Tim Cunningham wrote in an email to The Phoenix. “This unified document is a resource showing just how seriously Loyola University Chicago takes the safety and security of all of our students, faculty, and staff.”

The Clery Report splits Loyola owned property into four categories — on-campus property, on-campus student housing facilities, non-campus property and public property. Non-campus property includes any property owned by Loyola within its geographic area. Public property encompasses property such as sidewalks and streets immediately adjacent to campus, according to page 60 of the report.

As the Title IX coordinator, Love monitors the Violence Against Women Act offenses listed in the annual Clery report. In the state of Illinois, the definition of what constitutes domestic violence is broad. It includes spousal relationships, household relationships and other relationships of a romantic nature.

The separate category of “dating violence” is covered under the definition of domestic violence, causing the wide discrepancy in numbers seen in the report — why there’s only one instance of dating violence for on-campus property, and 10 for domestic violence in 2024. The number rose by one from 2023.

“If there was a huge precipitous drop, that would be of concern to us because that would make us wonder if people aren’t reporting things,” Love said.

He said sometimes the offices adjust policy language to capture more reports or find different ways to promote reporting mechanisms.

“You will always hear me say ‘We want to see the numbers go up,’” he said. “Which can be counterintuitive. For us, increased numbers in general mean people trust us enough to come forward and know where the resources are. Every one of those incidents is an opportunity for us to figure out if something happened, to take issues to correct it, to keep this place safe.”

Love said research will always support the fact of gender-based violence being underreported across the board. Gender-based violence statistics can be complicated by a number of things including underreporting, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The OEC tries to mitigate underreporting by sending out anonymous surveys, but Love said the office would rather see the number of actual reports go up and anonymous feedback to go down as it would indicate more people feel comfortable coming forward.

“We respect that people are choosing in some circumstances not to report because it’s not important to them, or because they want to handle it on their own, or for millions of different reasons, we respect that,” Love said. “But when we do get reports, those are all opportunities to look into a situation, to provide help in some way.”

The anonymous Speak Up Survey used to be sent out to students every year, but the state law which requires it — the Preventing Sexual Violence in Higher Education Act — was amended to require it every two years as conducting climate surveys requires more noticeable changes Similarly, sending out surveys often contributes to survey fatigue, according to Love. 

In 2024 and 2025, the survey results showed overall Loyola students felt safe on campus. Love said there’s still room for improvement and has plans to implement a “social norming” campaign, for which details are still in the works.

Love said the Clery numbers aren’t what the OEC pays most attention to — overall reports and Speak Up totals are. The numbers from both are publicized and discussed at Community Coalition for Gender Based Violence (CCGBV) Meetings, which are usually held on Zoom and open to students but have limited student engagement. The most recent meeting only had one student in attendance.

Speak Up results are published in an organized manner on the CCGBV website, though Love said those results also have to be submitted to the government in a “clunky” spreadsheet, which can delay getting them out to students in a digestible way.

“We don’t mean to make secret the numbers of things we’re seeing on campus,” Love said. “If anyone wants to know, we’re happy to talk about it. It’s just that by law, that’s not what Clery is asking us for.”

Love emphasized the goal of Clery is to ensure consistency across every college campus in the country.

“They’ve picked their formula, and they’ve used that formula for many decades since the Clery Act was passed,” he said. “And it’s kind of slow to evolve or change.” 

Love said recent bills like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act aren’t likely to impact future Clery reports, though federal changes to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race — may change the guidelines by which reports are filed. 

Love pointed out the Trump administration has talked about revising Title IX to be more clear about whether it covers gender identity or expression and sexual orientation, or whether it’s limited to biological sex assigned at birth.

Every year Love attends the Chicagoland Title IX Consortium of which representatives of all universities in Chicago and surrounding suburbs gather two to three times a semester.

“We’ll talk about things like Fizz or new social media stuff, where we’re seeing harassment happening, any new laws that are passing or significant kids’ decisions and inquire how our institutions are responding to those developments,” Love said.

Love’s office also takes in reports of hate offenses, such as vandalism. While he said he couldn’t go into specifics, in 2024, there were two reports — one related to anti-semitism and the other to race.

“We take those situations very seriously, and we will always be responsive to anyone who wants to bring forward a concern,” he said.

Those concerns range from hate messages carved into or spray painted on surfaces. Love said he also sees “a lot of whiteboard related nonsense.” Even if campus safety and the OEC see physical proof of such messages, there also must be evidence they were targeted toward a specific group or person to result in a tally on the Clery report.

“The collaborative approach gives Ramblers multiple ways to report crimes and get the help they may need,” Cunningham wrote in an email to The Phoenix. “The most important way a person can play a part in the overall safety of the University is by reporting crimes to either Campus Safety or local law enforcement.” 

Crimes or even suspicious behavior should be reported as soon as it is safe to do so and can be done by calling Campus Safety at 773.508.SAFE (7233) or 911.