A new position is helping address student concerns related to campus safety.
Tim Jefferies, who started last fall as the first advocate for student and community safety at UC Davis, is charged with facilitating dialogue with students on safety issues related to the campus community, implementing strategies to address such issues and researching best practices to bring to campus — all while engaging student communities.
“Advocate is the first word in my title for a reason,” said Jefferies. “My job is really to help amplify student voices.”
Evolving from the position of campus safety analyst started in fall 2020, the role reports to Sheri Atkinson, the associate vice chancellor for student life, campus community and retention services in Student Affairs.
Jefferies brings with him skills and experience in advocacy, student engagement, emergency planning and procedures, conflict resolution and more. His career has included work as a program supervisor and conflict resolution specialist at Marquette University’s Center for Peacemaking, an administrator at a Milwaukee high school for students who have committed serious breaches of conduct, and an addiction counselor for a behavioral health clinic in Long Beach, Washington.
Jefferies graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social work in 2011 from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and a master’s degree in educational policy and foundations in 2021 from Marquette.
At UC Davis, Jefferies has an office on the fourth floor of the Memorial Union, but he is not there much. He’s been out introducing himself to student leaders, meeting students at the community and resource centers, and connecting with staff to learn from campus resources like Counseling Services and the Office of Student Support and Judicial Affairs.
“I’ve been trying to show students that showing up is important enough to keep doing it,” Jefferies said. He has high praise for the students he has met in his first nine months. “The students here are so involved and engaged,” he said.
Jefferies started Nov. 1 in the same calendar year that stabbings in the city killed two, including a UC Davis student, and injured a third person; protests and counterprotests surrounded controversial speakers; and the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and war in Gaza inflamed tensions (and this spring led to an encampment on the Quad for six weeks).
The safety issues students have shared, Jefferies said, most often were related to psychological and emotional safety, including mental health; discrimination and harassment including freedom of expression, surveillance and doxing; transportation including the UC Davis Police Department’s free Safe Ride service; and lighting. Others were physical safety; sexual, relational and gender-based harassment and violence; event safety; concerns related to race and ethnicity; alcohol and drugs; disability; and housing.
“For me, safety is defined by whatever students include in it,” Jefferies said about his work. “Different marginalized student communities have unique definitions of what safety means to them.”
“How you ensure people feel safe is something I roll around,” he added.
With a focus on proactive efforts, Jefferies will help students take their concerns to staff, committees and campus leadership. He meets regularly with Chief Joe Farrow of the UC Davis Police Department and partners with other leaders on campus too.
“My role is to bring the student voice into those spaces with more frequency and more equity,” he said.
Jefferies said part of what he’ll be doing is also making students aware of existing resources and initiatives. For example, Chancellor Gary S. May announced in October that the campus is investing more than $20 million in the next five years to continue to improve security infrastructure including expanded outdoor lighting, more emergency call boxes, additional security cameras and expanded card access to buildings.
The services and resources on campus are “mind-blowing,” Jefferies said. “There are resources under every rock, but not everyone knows about them. I feel a really big responsibility to be a walking Rolodex of resources.”
Jefferies’ first projects include working with Strategic Communications to consolidate into one website information for students on personal and emergency safety. He has also met with the city of Davis so he can highlight well-lit routes for students moving around the city at night.
As he has gotten to know the campus, Jefferies said, he has found UC Davis staff to be supportive. “People have been wildly collaborative in wanting to create safety for students.”