Students should be proactive in personal safety
OUR VIEW: Students should actively protect themselves from break-ins and assaults when the university fails to do so.
Lock your doors, students. It may be your only recourse, according to an email sent to all housing students on Sunday.
After last week’s bout of dorm break-ins, many students are wondering what administrators are doing to remedy the situation.
Yes, there are cameras outside each dormitory on campus–facing the parking lot.
Your cars are better protected from a break-in or assault than you are while in the comfort of your home away from home.
Last Sunday’s mass email was sent out at a timely five and a half hours after the incident. Apparently, no text alerts were sent out to warn dorm-dwellers to be cautious either.
In fact, no alerts of any kind were sent out to commuting students. Many did not know about the situation until Tuesday.
Something is wrong with the system.
We spend so much money on everything from equipment for each department to general upkeep of the university.
Administrators should consider shifting around some funds to better secure the safety of its housing students.
Whether or not the victim had locked her door is beside the point.
The panic-button app would also be of little use in a situation where one has an intruder already in her bed.
At the very least, the most logical solution would be to install cameras that face the entrances to dorms to track who enters and leaves at all times.
Better yet, installing cameras in each hall, on each floor would almost guarantee an intruder’s capture. Hotels do it, and we don’t cry foul for the sake of infringing upon our personal privacy.
The same standards should be set in place on campus.
There must be a logical way to both protect students in their dorms and respect their personal privacy.
One might think that giving up a little privacy would be worth not having to worry about being attacked while asleep.
Students, consider what is most important–your physical well-being.
If one isn’t partaking in questionable or prohibited behavior on campus, one shouldn’t have anything to be worried about in the case of privacy.
The bottom line is that if students want to be adequately protected from intruders, they must take an active role in protecting themselves.
This includes making sure the locks work at your apartment and then locking them religiously.
Report any suspicious activity and try your best to not walk home to your dorm alone.
Until the university is able or willing to amp-up security in the dorms, students have the ultimate responsibility to protect themselves and their possessions.