Germane to an understanding of the findings is the fact that the report is predicated on school violence and safety data culled from 2015. Since then, several shootings in schools and their surrounding communities, as well as other related violent incidents, have occurred.

The upshot is that crime and violence within academic settings brings a plethora of adverse potentialities for student victims — among them a spike in truancy and degraded performances academically. Moreover, school crime victims are more apt to drop out of school.

The entities behind the report include the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is the primary federal entity deployed for collecting, analyzing and reporting education data regarding the United States. Likewise, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is the nation’s one-stop-shop for collecting, analyzing, publishing, and disseminating statistical information about crime in the U.S. — including, its perpetrators and victims.

“While there are positive trends in the annual report on crime and school safety, we know — and tragically have been reminded in recent weeks — there is much more to be done to keep our nation’s students and teachers safe at school,” said Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in a statement released by the U.S. Department of Education following publication of the report. “The Federal Commission on School Safety is committed to working quickly to identify and highlight best practices and solutions that state and local leaders can implement to improve school safety.”

Among the observations spotlighted in the report is the fact that between July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015, a total of 47 student, staff and non-student school-associated violent deaths occurred. This number was comprised of 28 homicides, 17 suicides, and two legal intervention deaths, which are defined as a fatality that results from law enforcement during an arrest or otherwise legal suppression of a disturbance. Naturally, statistics from 2017 to 2018 will likely tell another story due to the sharp increase in school shootings and related events clustered at the beginning of the year. In a related finding, 92 percent of public schools have a school shooting plan in place, which is a 13 percent increase from stats taken during 2003 to 2004.

On a positive note, the increased emphasis on curbing school bullying may be realizing results with the percentage of public schools reporting student bullying (occurring at least once a week) had decreased from 29 percent in 1999 to 2000 to 12 percent in 2015 to 2016, according to the report. Moreover, occurrences of student verbal abuse of instructors at least once a week is trending down — from 13 percent in 1999 to 2000 to five percent in 2015 to 2016.

Another indicator of positive change is the percentage of students, ages 12 to 18, who reported being the target of hate-related words while on campus apparently decreased from 12 percent in 2001 to 7 percent in 2015.

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According to the university, the 15,000-square-foot Wine Spectator Learning Center will accommodate upwards of 300 students and feature three core classrooms, a commons area for supporting collaboration and student-driven business ventures, and an industry center for both professional and academic uses. It will also include seminar space, event space, an entrepreneurship laboratory, a wine business research library and an outdoor study terrace. More importantly, the center will provide the physical and technical infrastructure to support innovative and relevant curricula to develop wine industry leadership around the world.

"Sonoma State University has taken a leadership position in wine business education, a specialized but important field that deserves support,” said Marvin R. Shanken, editor and publisher of Wine Spectator, in a release. "The potential benefits to the wine industry are enormous. We are pleased to be able to help the University and their students achieve their goals."

Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute is located in the heart of the state’s wine country, and was created through a public-private partnership between the university and the wine industry. It was founded in 1996 and was the first wine program in the nation to offer wine industry-specific degrees and certificates. In 2013 alone more than 600 students graduated from the institute and its online program.

Over the last 30 years the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation has raised more than $20 million to support such wine and food education and scholarship programs. Previous beneficiaries have included students at the University of California, Davis, Department of Viticulture & Ecology; the Culinary Institute of America; Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration; and Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management.

"Wine Spectator is the premier media brand in education for the wine industry and Sonoma State University is a global leader in wine business education and research. This is a great pairing of two world class education partners," said Sonoma State President Ruben Armiñana, in a statement.
Though no specific construction schedule has been announced, work on the new facility is expected to begin in late 2015, ending in mid 2016.

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