As featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and Campus Safety Magazine.
S. Daniel Carter is a nationally recognized campus safety consultant and Clery Act expert with more than 35 years of hands-on experience helping colleges and universities build safer, more resilient communities.
As the President and Founder of SAFE Campuses, LLC since 2017, he has guided countless institutions in higher education risk management and regulatory compliance. He leads a deeply experienced multidisciplinary team that delivers comprehensive campus safety solutions grounded in unmatched Clery Act expertise.
Together, Daniel and the SAFE Campuses team partner with senior leaders — Vice Presidents for Public Safety, Chiefs of Police, and Deans of Students — as well as the professionals who do the work day-in and day-out: campus police officers, Title IX Coordinators, student conduct professionals, and Clery Coordinators. They work collaboratively to strengthen every dimension of campus safety and create environments where students, faculty, and staff can thrive.
How Daniel and the SAFE Campuses Team Help Your Institution
Under Daniel’s leadership, the team provides integrated, practical support that addresses the full spectrum of campus safety:
- Comprehensive Campus Safety & Security Audits: Including on-site physical security assessments to identify vulnerabilities.
- Clery Act Compliance Programs: Transforming dense Annual Security Reports into clear, student- and family-friendly Campus Safety Handbooks that get read, build trust, strengthen recruitment, and deliver measurable safety improvements.
- Threat Assessment & Behavioral Intervention: Delivering multidisciplinary team strategies to proactively prevent violence.
- Emergency Operations Planning: Providing campus emergency preparedness, evacuation protocols, and crisis communication strategies.
- Prevention & Response Strategies: Addressing alcohol and other drugs, hazing (including 2024 Stop Campus Hazing Act compliance), and gender-based violence (VAWA and Title IX compliance).
- High-Impact Training: Utilizing ethical AI-assisted drafting to build lasting culture change.
A Legacy of Impact and Proactive Capacity-Building
Daniel’s mission was deeply influenced by the tragedy on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech, which confirmed that compliance alone is never enough. He realized that real safety requires clear, usable information that people actually read and act on—an insight that continues to guide everything the SAFE Campuses team does today.
His comprehensive perspective comes from a lifelong practice of immersing himself in every role in campus safety, beginning as a student activist at the University of Tennessee in 1991. For his first 16 years in the field at Security On Campus, Inc. (now the Clery Center), his work focused on accountability — enforcing Clery standards, creating the first national campus-crime victims’ advocacy program, and developing the first multi-disciplinary Clery training curriculum.
From 2012 to 2015, he directed the 32 National Campus Safety Initiative (32 NCSI) for the VTV Family Outreach Foundation. This role shifted his focus to collaborative partnership and proactive capacity-building, which ultimately led him to found SAFE Campuses, LLC.
Shaping National Campus Safety Policy
Daniel has helped shape every major amendment to the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act since 1991, including the Campus SaVE Act (VAWA), and provided technical assistance to Congress on the 2024 Stop Campus Hazing Act. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and served on multiple U.S. Department of Education Negotiated Rulemaking panels.
He collaborated on the 1999 Negotiated Rulemaking committee to shape the practical compliance model still used today and was specifically thanked in the 2005 U.S. Department of Education Handbook for Campus Crime Reporting. By learning as much from campus officials as they learn from him, Daniel ensures every solution is practical and truly owned by those who live it.
He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Tennessee Knoxville (1994).
Let’s Talk
Ready to strengthen your campus safety and compliance? Schedule your free, no-pressure 30-minute discovery call with S. Daniel Carter today to identify your institution’s most critical gaps and discover exactly how the SAFE Campuses team can deliver comprehensive, practical solutions for your institution.