JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Homecoming week is underway at Edward Waters University, and the campus is ramping up its security.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s after the school\u2019s sister HBCU\u2019s experienced incidents of violence during recent homecoming celebrations at campuses including South Carolina State, Alcorn State, and Jackson State.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cKnowing that because of what our sisters went through, we are ramping up and ramping up our security,\u201d said Trenton Bryant, a student. It\u2019s definitely a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n As students, faculty, and staff gather for concerts, the coronation, the parade, and the big football matchup against Central State, safety is a priority.<\/p>\n \u201cWe definitely have great campus security that is going to make sure that we stay secure and stay safe,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n The university launched a new safety and security initiative called \u201cProtect the Yard.\u201d<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n At EWU, they are more than tripling their regular law enforcement and security presence during homecoming week. The university is hiring additional personnel from local law enforcement and private security firms.<\/p>\n Metal detectors, hand wands, and security screening stations will be in place at all major event entry points.<\/p>\n And a strict Clear Bag Policy will be enforced at all major events. Only small, clear bags are permitted; purses and opaque backpacks are prohibited.<\/p>\n Campus surveillance is also being expanded. The \u201cTiger Alert\u201d system will be used for emergency communication.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n These are all measures that students said are necessary.<\/p>\n \u201cThose steps were supposed to be taken in order to have the security and comfort for everybody, no matter boy, girl, everybody on this campus,\u201d said student Savaud Dorsey.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are taking seriously and into consideration what everyone else went through so that we feel better about what\u2019s going on on campus,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Homecoming week is underway at Edward Waters University, and the campus is ramping up its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,19793,19800,15057,19794,19802,19797,19795,19788,19796,19789,19790,969,19801,116,118,117,634,19798,19799,19792,8301,19791,8733],"class_list":["post-26294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-alabama_state_university","tag-alcorn_state","tag-alexis","tag-alexis_clevender","tag-alexis_glovinger","tag-central_state","tag-edward_waters","tag-edward_waters_university","tag-ewu","tag-hbcus","tag-howard","tag-jack","tag-jackson_state","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-local","tag-protect_the","tag-south_carolina_state","tag-south_carolina_state_university","tag-university","tag-washington_dc","tag-yard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}