Andy Tisdel
Staff Writer
On Thursday, Oct. 27, Dean of Students Kurt Holmes announced a number of changes to campus safety and security policies. Every night since Oct. 26, Security and Protective Services (SPS) has deployed an extra officer to patrol Beall Avenue on foot. SPS is also increasing the availability and responsiveness of “safe walks,” where any student can request that a SPS officer escort them to their dorms.
In addition, all outside card readers have been reprogrammed to accept any student card at any time, and blue lights will be installed on the intercoms outside residential dorms to remind students that they can function as emergency phones. The changes, announced by campus-wide email, are a response to an increased number of security incidents on Beall Avenue.
“We have seen an increasing number of hostile verbal confrontations, threatening behavior, and in a few cases physical assaults involving students and community members on Beall Avenue this fall,” Dean Holmes said.
Responding to that increase, Wooster’s Campus Council held an open forum on Oct. 25. An estimated 100-150 students attended and voiced their concerns to Holmes, Campus Council Chair Kevin Carpenter ’12 and Student Government Association (SGA) President Hannah Haas ’12.
“I’d never seen such passion for this issue,” said Haas. “There were a lot of concerns from the students [who felt verbal and physical abuse on Beall was going unnoticed],” she said. The forum attendees also raised questions about a lack of follow-up phone calls and emails from SPS to the victims of incidents.
In response, SPS is tightening up its policies and procedures. “Frankly, there’s been a lack of getting back to victims, and we need to repair that,” said Security Chief Steven Glick. “There’s some information we can’t share, but […] there’s no reason we can’t tell them we followed up and filed a report and it’s being reviewed by the Dean’s staff. There’s no doubt that we need to do a better job.”
SPS is far from the only agency to make changes, however.
“Each department on campus was given a list of tasks they needed to complete. A lot was given to Security. Some were given to Res. Life, Student Life, things like that,” said Haas.
Student Life’s “Safe, Sober, Smart” program ran on campus from Nov. 2-4, featuring a panel discussion of drugs and alcohol in Lowry Pit.
Haas, meanwhile, wants students familiarized with Security. “SGA had a separate fireside chat last Thursday evening and the students were saying, ‘I would feel much more comfortable with the security guards if I knew who they actually were.’” To that end, she is planning a dinner in Kittredge where students and security members can mingle and get to know one another.
SGA will also unveil an ad campaign on the “top 10 things students can do to make this campus safer,” Haas said. Topping the list is for students to report any incidents they see or experience to SPS.
“Part of that equation is still whether students report incidents,” said Glick. “If they have problems, they need to report them so we can do something.”