photo by: Mike Yoder

In this file photo from Sept. 16, 2014, demonstrators sit outside Strong Hall to protest Kansas University's handling of sexual assault investigations.

In Sunday’s Journal-World I had a story comparing the number of forcible sex offenses reported at all Big 12 universities, according to their 2015 Clery reports. With 32 rapes and fondlings (18 rape, 14 fondling) reported in 2014, KU had significantly more than any other Big 12 school except the University of Texas (which, notably, has more than 50,000 students on its main campus compared with KU’s 24,700).

See the full story and chart of sex offenses by school here.

If you’re not familiar with Clery reports, they contain far more information than just sex offenses — anywhere between 50 and 100 or so more pages of information, at least among the Big 12 university reports I cited.

photo by: Mike Yoder

In this file photo from Sept. 16, 2014, demonstrators sit outside Strong Hall to protest Kansas University's handling of sexual assault investigations.

Here’s a look at a few other nuggets I noted from these reports, which federal law requires each school to prepare annually and make publicly available:

• Domestic violence, dating violence and stalking: KU also had the second-highest number of these offenses in 2014, following Texas.

Here are the number of domestic violence, dating violence and stalking reports by school: Texas, 62; KU, 53; Iowa State, 49; West Virginia, 29; Oklahoma, 28; Oklahoma State, 26; Texas Tech, 21; K-State, 16; Baylor, 7; and Texas Christian, 5.

• Murder and aggravated assault: Texas Christian was the only school to report a murder or manslaughter in 2014, and it was in campus housing, according to its Clery report. (In 2013 K-State had one on campus, and Texas had one on adjacent public property, according to their Clery reports.)

In one of the next-most serious violent crime categories, every Big 12 school except Baylor tallied at least a couple aggravated assaults, defined in the Clery reports as an unlawful act by one person against another for the purpose of inflicting severe bodily injury, and usually accompanied by a weapon.

Here are the number of aggravated assaults by school: Texas, 9; Texas Christian, 7; Texas Tech, 6; KU, 6; West Virginia, 5; Iowa State, 3; Oklahoma, 2; Oklahoma State, 2; K-State, 2; and Baylor, 0.

• TMI?: Besides making a school’s crime statistics transparent and comprehensive* Clery reports are also mandated to be informative about campus policy and resources.

I’d be shocked if many students — or even parents — read these things cover-to-cover.

But if they did, they would learn (at least from KU’s 52-page report): contact information for where to report almost anything, from sexual assault to building security concerns; where to call to get help with mental health issues; statutes about policy authority and jurisdiction; summaries of safety-related university policies, from weapons on campus to nondiscrimination; Kansas DUI laws; personal safety tips; the university’s plan for responding to sex offenses; FBI definitions of every criminal offense listed; and more.

(*Clery reports tally crimes reported to campus police, other law enforcement and university officials such as KU’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access. They include crimes reported on campus proper, public property adjacent to campus and noncampus properties such as fraternities, sororities or buildings used for university purposes.)

• Fires (aka, RIP dinner): One part of KU’s Clery report made me laugh, a list of all the things KU students were attempting to cook when they started fires in their dorm rooms or campus apartments.

Of 61 student housing fires reported in 2014, a lone incident was caused by a cigarette tossed into mulch, according to KU’s 2015 Clery report. The other 60 all stemmed from cooking-gone-wrong.

Among casualties listed more specifically than just “cooking fire” or the ubiquitous “burnt popcorn” are: burnt hotdog, pork chops, bacon, hamburger, cookies, mac-n-cheese, meatballs, steaks, bagel, pizza box and plantains.

Fortunately in KU’s case, according to its 2015 Clery report, no human fire injuries or deaths from residential housing fires have been reported in at least the past three years.

Lewis Hall, center left, with Templin Hall at right.

*

• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.