Its two pm right now, a beautiful day for the season: sunny, crisp. Sadly, I won't see it. Instead, I'll be working in my office until well after dark (which is, what, like 4pm now?) and I'm already thinking about the long trek from the Humanities Building where I'm located to my car nestled somewhere in "Siberia"--the name I have for the parking lot across the street from Wang. The reason I'm thinking about this commute already isn't that its cold, really, or that it's a long walk, but rather because it'll be dark, I'll be loaded down with about 30 pounds worth of laptop & accessories, student papers, books, and bulky winter clothing--and the parking lot is really just a scary place. Secluded from the main road by trees, several rows in the parking lot actually border the forest that surrounds it providing a perfect hiding place for potential muggers, rapists, general assaulters, and other people that go creep in the night.
Numbers-wise, Stony Brook appears to be a safe place. By far the most incidents reported are burglary (27 reports in 2006, 11 counts of auto larceny); physical crimes committed to students are far less (3 felony assault, 2 cases of date rape, and 3 cases of sexual assault in 2006). For a campus with over 22,000 students that means less than 4% of the population has been physically violated...Wait.
That's almost 4% too much. And we've already reached our quota of attempted assaults for the year in the first few months of the semester.
I initially wrote this article before President Kenny came out with her proposal to reduce campus crime. But the research I did to write it actually proved something quite significant: that there were already several campus-wide safety measures in place that were just not being utilized or advertised--and it is these measures, for the most part, that President Kenny is championing in the new crackdown on campus crime--not the development of new systems.
At my alma mater, good ‘ol Western Michigan University (and I use this as an example not just because I'm familiar with the campus but because the campus is very similarly in the surrounding community) has reported 4 counts of "forcible sex offenses;" no cases of physical assault were reported. There are just over 25,000 students at WMU, leaving us with a *much* lower incident per population rate. So what does WMU have that we don't?
At WMU there's a "walker" service that was heavily advertised and used. Going someplace dark and scary? Call the number and you get some uniformed someone to walk you to where you were going. The number to call was plastered everywhere, it was handed out at orientation, it circulated through email. I didn't even think we had one here at Stony Brook until I started thinking about this piece--which was after three incidents of attempted assault had been reported in rapid succession this past semester. Who else knew about this walker service? It's actually a Campus Residences service, not a police service, and is why we gradstudents might not have heard of it. It can be reached at 2-WALK(9255) from any campus phone or by dialing 631-632-WALK. The walker service operates from 8pm to 3:30am daily.
Additionally, there are over 100 Blue Light Emergency Phone locations across the West Campus alone. There's a listing available at www.stonybrook.edu/police/blue_lights.shtml. But where are these? I've spent countless hours (days, months) in the Humanities Building for going on three years now and I've yet to see the emergency phone that's promised to be in the building. Why aren't they prominently established along the main walkways? If someone approaches me in the SAC parking lot I have to run my out-of-shape self to either the bus stop or the road in order to call for help. When Circle Drive in front of The Wang Center was being repaved last year the one emergency call box in the area had a garbage bag tied over it for weeks. How about a map where all these Blue Light Emergency Phones are located? What about monitoring areas that have, in the past, proven to be high-risk areas (like the bike path near the North Entrance where there have been several incidents reported over the years) and strategically placing call-boxes there? What about putting emergency call systems in obvious places, like women's bathrooms, and having their locations placed on the building directories and maps?
Also, we should reconsider the landscaping that this university seems to be so proud of. At WMU the issue of landscaping is taken as not merely as aesthetic but as an issue of campus safety. Located in the WMU Campus Safety Annual Report (www.wmudps.wmich.edu/Documents/ANNUALREPORT.pdf) is an acknowledgement of the "potential hazard that dense shrubbery can present" and a commitment to maintain visibility around pathways and entrances. As much as I hate to see a tree cut down anytime anywhere on our planet, strategic landscaping is a must in promoting a safe campus. The trees blocking the parking lot across from Wang need to be thinned in the least--and what about giving our walking paths a wider clearing as well, especially on Circle Drive, where I see joggers at all times of the day, and along the "unofficial" paths that have been worn through wooded areas?
Finally, many of the new security measures are directed mainly at the campus residence halls. While this seems to be one of the greatest risk areas on campus, what about those of us who don't live on campus but work late into the night at our offices, labs, or libraries? That is, what about us gradstudents? While the new plan states that the Campus Police will now patrol through the inner and outer residence quads, it seems only apt that they also extend their patrols to the department buildings and such as well. Let's get them out of their cars: who has actually ever seen a police officer walking somewhere on campus (except for the time they followed the TA protesters last year to President Kenny's office)?
Of course we can all do things to assure our personal safety. Things like walking with a friend and taking the past most traveled by (and well-lit). But there are things our university can do, too. And it's well past time they started. I'm attaching a link to the measures President Kenny is proposing; at the bottom of that page she lists her email address and invites you to send suggestions.
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