Wilkes University Public Safety Officer Peter J. Canavan recently published a guide to college safety titled: “The Ultimate Guide to College Safety How to Protect Yourself From Online and Offline Threats to Your Personal Safety at College & Around Campus.”

The guide focuses on issues such as residence hall safety, credit cards, alcohol and drugs, and even provides self-defense maneuvers through pictures.

The book also gives students tips on how to be healthy and self-confident, all of which can help if a students find themselves in trouble, according to Canavan.

Alongside the book is website Campus Safety University, which is an online resource to help college students stay safe.

The Ultimate Guide to College Safety is Canavan’s fifth published book.

“My first book was a general guide about self-defense. I thought a better way to approach this would be to address different niches. The college niche seemed perfect for me being a public safety officer and having my son go off to college this year.”

He added, “college safety is a huge problem. It’s in the news all the time, and there are threats college students aren’t even aware of.”

Canavan also discussed the many different issues college students face.

“I tried to think of every possible subject that could be tackled. Even things like establishing personal boundaries, because most people don’t even know someone has gone too far until it’s too late.

“Everyone has separate safety concerns. Most people never think about it and that’s a main problem,” he said.

“The book covers every aspect online safety because of my experience as an IT consultant, and every aspect of offline safety based on my experiences as a self-defence instructor,” Canavan explained. “My experience as a public safety officer means I can see things from a college viewpoint.”

He further added: “I’m trying to tell everyone, ‘Look it can happen to you and you should think about what you can do if does happen.’

“When you do that, you’ll be way ahead of the game, because you have actually thought about it. Your reaction time will be greatly reduced. It could be as simple as what to do if you run into trouble at a party, or something financial, or something even a lot worse, like assault or theft.”

His number one tip for students regarding safety is: “Be aware of your surroundings and the people and the places and the objects that are nearby.”