This study analyzed the emergency protocol and violence prevention methods utilized at an American university. The four research questions were: (1) What are the sources of violence at the university? a. How has the university addressed these sources? (2) What constitutes an emergency in the eyes of the university? (3) How do emergency protocols address the issues that can lead to large scale acts of violence at universities? a. How effective are these protocols at protecting the safety of the campus community? (4) How does a reconceptualization of emergency protocol address violence prevention at a university? A case study methodology was used to study the institution. Critical theory was also used with coding of twelve individual interviews, analysis of the university's Clery Report data, and critical discourse analysis of the institution's Emergency Operations Plan. The analysis of the Clery Report showed that not all types of violence and crime on campus are reported to the public in the Clery Report. Analysis of the interviews revealed four themes: (1) Institutional Conceptions of Violence, (2) Gender and Violence, (3) Institutional Conceptions of Emergency, and (4) Violence Prevention Strategies. The critical discourse analysis of the Emergency Operations Plan revealed that the university's stated priority is to protect life and property, but what it considers to be an emergency is an incident that disrupts normal campus operations. There are incidents of individual, institutional, and structural-cultural violence at the university. Individual violence includes acts of physical violence and verbal/emotional violence. The university creates institutional violence through not reporting all the crime statistics for the institutional through the Clery Report and also through the institutional silos present at the university. Structural-cultural violence is created by the value of the militaristic model of emergency assessment, overvalue of protecting property instead of people, and the insufficient conceptions of violence by some members of the institution. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]