Governor launches campus safety PSA challenge
Matt Birch
Capital News Service
Gov. Bob McDonnell has a question for Virginia college students: “What would you do to make your campus safer?”
Answer that with a creative video commercial, and your message may be aired on statewide television.
At a press conference at VCU’s MCV Campus on Monday, McDonnell announced the launch of the “College Campus Safety and Violence Prevention Public Service Announcement Challenge.”
The governor urged the state’s college students to collaborate with peers and create PSA videos to enter in the contest.
“Let’s see who across this great commonwealth of Virginia can come up with the best idea,” McDonnell said.
The contest is being sponsored by the Governor’s Office for Substance Abuse Prevention. The office describes the challenge as “a statewide video competition devoted to promoting campus environments in which all of Virginia’s college students can live, learn and have fun.”
The contest is open to students enrolled in any public or private college or university, including two-year schools, in Virginia.
They must produce a video of 30 seconds or less aimed at making “Virginia’s college campus communities safer, stronger and better overall.”
Students have until April 30 to submit their entries online and postmark an entry form. There is no entry fee.
“Ideal entries will effectively highlight how best to ensure college campus safety and an effective way to prevent violence among college students,” the rules state.
McDonnell announced the PSA contest at the Larrick Student Center on VCU’s MCV Campus. He was joined at the news conference by VCU President Michael Rao, VCU Police Chief John Venuti, Colonel W. Steven Flaherty, Virginia State Police superintendent, and other officials.
This is not the first time McDonnell has issued such a challenge.
In 2007, while serving as attorney general, he launched “Project SafetyNetVA.” That contest challenged students in grades six through 12 to create television advertisements promoting safe surfing on the Web.
“A lot of good ideas come from outside of the public safety system,” McDonnell said.
He said victims and other people often “have insight into what can be done to improve public safety,” and that public safety is essential for college students to achieve their maximum potential.
“You have to start with the principle of a safe community and a safe neighborhood.”
