Penn State Adopts ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ As University’s Active-Attacker Response
Penn State will replace “StaySAFE” with a nationally-recognized program — “Run. Hide, Fight” — as the official university plan to help students, faculty, and staff be prepared for a violent attack.
“Moving toward the ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ program, we are providing our community members with a very simple, yet effective way to respond during active-attacker situation,” Penn State chief of police Keith Morris said. “The previous program that we had in place — ‘StaySAFE’, which was implemented in 2014 — still carried the same messages as ‘Run, Hide, Fight.’ However, it was a little less intuitive and not as well known.”
The program is endorsed at the state, local, and federal levels. It’s also the active-attacker response program at the majority of Big Ten schools. The goal with the move to “Run, Hide, Fight” is to maintain that consistent message for anyone arriving at Penn State.
“‘Run, Hide, Fight,’ because it is the national standard, is being taught as early as elementary school,” Morris said. “So when we have people come to campus now, students coming to campus, they’re already familiar with it.”
“Run, Hide, Fight” has a training video available on its website and University Police is offering in-person training — a 90-minute class with a member of the community-oriented policing unit that includes a walkthrough of the video and different elements of the program.
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