Revamping Public Safety

College is supposed to be a home away from home for college students. For many students, this is their first time being away from home, their parents, and their friends for an extended period of time. Their families rely on the school to provide the tools their children need to be safe as well as the protection no matter where they are on campus. Many of our students are from different countries where their parents cannot just drop everything and drive to them if something was wrong. 

Public Safety is supposed to be there to provide that protection and to put the families at ease. Unfortunately, the public safety that we currently have, only adds more fear and more nerves to the students rather than suppressing those nerves and fears. The officers show no sense of urgency or even a want to try and protect our students. Many scenarios have been described to our group where students either don’t get an answer from the officer when they call, or feel as though they aren’t their first priority. Instead of trying to protect our students and keep watch at night, when we need them most, you can find them taking naps in their cars, watching things on their iPad, or even following a car that has pulled in. Nighttime is when there are higher chances of students needing help or situations happening and they need to take it seriously.

There are a few things that can be done as a start to fully reforming how the Public Safety department is run. One recommendation is to create a modified system. In this system, there should be better ways of getting to students faster as well as making sure multiple issues are handled at once. Another recommendation, and a bit of an expansion on the modified system, is that we hire more Public Safety officers. Having more officers will make getting to students faster because one person can always stay on campus at the office while another is patrolling the main campus, mid-campus, and the dorms. This way if anything happens at the dorms, there is someone there that can get there fast. One more recommendation is that the Public Safety department use “slow” to go over camera footage, address complaints, as well as go over reports. Many times there are complaints and reports that are written up, but they never get anything done about them because they “don’t have time,” so the report and issue gets blown off. The last recommendation is to find officers that have a different morale. Many of the students notice that the officers are slow, “unhelpful,” “lazy,” and seem as though they don’t want to be there. If students see this, then they aren’t going to feel as though those people will help them or make it to them in time to be saved.

Author: Ethan Achten