UT’s Jillian Paciello, who has been instrumental in making safety information more accessible to the campus community and the university’s Clery Act crime reporting data more effective, has been named the Clery Compliance Coordinator of the Year.

The award, given by the National Association of Clery Compliance Officers and Professionals, recognizes a practitioner who has developed or significantly improved their institution’s Clery compliance program.

The Clery Act—officially the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act—is a federal law that aims to provide transparency about campus crime policy and statistics and requires colleges and universities to disclose that information.

Paciello, who in 2014 was named the university’s first compliance coordinator for the Clery Act, does her work with others in mind, according to one nominator. For example, Paciello is responsible for crafting safety notices, also known as timely warnings, that are sent to the campus community following the report of certain crimes—a challenging task, since the messages are necessarily immediate and brief.

“Jillian quickly built a coalition of advocates and past victims to help her craft messages for various Clery crimes,” the nominator wrote. “Using these templates we can be more certain of including language that does not inadvertently cast doubt or shame on a victim, and includes common sense prevention language that is easy to understand.”

Another nominator noted that Paciello, a sought-after campus expert, builds and cultivates relationships to increase campus-wide collaboration in educating students, faculty, and staff about Clery Act compliance.

“She is committed to understanding each constituency group and is able to create buy-in, which ties Clery with our own institutional goals,” the nominator wrote. “It is not just something we must do, it is something she helps people to want to do.”

In the six years Paciello has been UT’s Clery compliance coordinator, she has built an extensive program from the ground up and created initiatives that have significantly impacted the university and campus community:

• She established an effective Campus Security Authority program for identifying and training CSAs—individuals who, based on their UT roles and responsibilities, are designated to receive and report criminal offenses.
• She used a geographic information system, or GIS, to create a color-coded Clery map to help departments and community members understand Clery property and reporting.
• She maintains the complex record-keeping system that was influential in UT’s successful state Clery compliance audit earlier this year.
• She developed the university’s Clery compliance website with a variety of features including quick access to annual reports, the crime log, and all safety notices issued since 2015.
• She created, produced, and published a CSA training video to help new and current employees understand their role.