College Awarded $25,000 in STANLEY Security Grant Program

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STANLEY Security, a leading global manufacturer and integrator of comprehensive security solutions for a wide range of industries, is proud to announce Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Mich. as the recipient of a $25,000 grant in the TOGETHER FOR SAFER SCHOOLS Grant Program. The grant will provide the institution with STANLEY Security installed products and solutions, consultative security services, campus security standards development best practices, and compliance education opportunities.

“Aquinas College has shown an unwavering dedication to promoting security on campus and beyond both prior to, and throughout this program. We’re proud to present this community with a $25,000 grant from STANLEY Security,” said Kyle Gordon, Director, Higher Education – North America for STANLEY Security. “At STANLEY Security, we are committed to establishing a culture of safety and peace of mind for students, faculty and staff on every higher education campus throughout the nation. The passion around security at this small college is evident among the students, parents, staff and community in how they rallied together to support Aquinas in an effort to better secure the campus and students. Their commitment to their school is inspiring.”

Nominations for the grant program were open to any U.S. higher education institution through mid-November of last year. Then, from January 19 through February 13, 2015, students, faculty, administrators, parents, alumni and members of over 200 qualifying campus communities were encouraged to vote daily online for their chosen school at stanleysaferschools.com, via SMS text messaging or on Twitter via a hashtag specific to each qualifying institution. The colleges and universities won by accumulating the most votes in the contest, separated into three tiers of student population size – under 8,000 students, between 8,000-19,999 students and over 20,000 students – for a total of six winners.

As a grant recipient in the first tier of campuses with over 2,300 students enrolled, Aquinas College – a highly regarded, private liberal arts college rooted in the Catholic and Dominican tradition with a 117-acre campus in the Grand Rapids area – will receive $25,000 in STANLEY Security installed products, services, solutions, and training sessions.

“Even though we were in the small college category, we were going up against schools up to three times our size,” said Brian Matzke, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at Aquinas College. “There were dozens of schools in our category, and we were much smaller than many of them. It was because of the support of the Aquinas and Grand Rapids communities that we were able to succeed in winning this grant.”

STANLEY Security will present Aquinas College with the official award in the coming weeks. The customized solution is to be completed during 2015.

The college plans to use the grant to enhance the institution’s current emergency response plan. Priorities include an opt-out mass notification system, additional emergency speakers, card access and cameras. Items will be prioritized to maximize the impact of the grant.

Additional offerings provided to Aquinas College as a grant winner may include consultative security services and seminars for school officials on security threat assessment and advanced Clery Act training offered by STANLEY Security partner and campus security experts, D. Stafford & Associates. Turn-key installations available to winners can be any STANLEY Security product or solution, including access control solutions, video surveillance, fire systems, intrusion systems, mechanical and electromechanical door hardware, mass notification systems or other security technologies.

“Between the TOGETHER FOR SAFER SCHOOLS Grant Program, our new, three-year, extensive partnership with D. Stafford & Associates, the National Association of Clery Compliance Officers and Professionals (NACCOP) and IACLEA Corporate Partnership, and our ongoing efforts to continually initiate security education opportunities among institutions of higher learning, we are making every effort possible to ensure that our nation’s students can feel a sense of safety and security in their postsecondary environments,” Gordon said.

STANLEY currently partners with thousands of colleges and universities nationwide to promote the value of secure campus learning environments. For more information about the TOGETHER FOR SAFER SCHOOLS Grant Program, or STANLEY Security’s broad range of products and solutions for colleges and universities, please visit www.stanleycss.com/highered. To see the full list of grant recipients, please visit www.stanleysaferschools.com.