Everyone has a story to tell about safety and how something has happened to them here on campus. This story happened during one of our first weeks of college.

A male student everyone knew as 'crazy' came into my room at three in the morning. He woke me up and asked if he could check on my roommate. After he left, I got up and locked the door. My roommate or I could have been hurt and then what would have happened? One of us would have to call the front desk and get help. The first people here would be an RA or Public Safety, and then we would have gotten what ever help we needed. But what if I was walking around campus and someone hurt me? Then what would I do? I hope there would be a blue light around that I could press and get help, but would anyone listen?

These where the kinds of questions we considered when we decided, in our Communications 110 class, to analyzed the safety issue on campus. One member of our group asked Public Safety if they respond to the blue lights around campus and Public Safety said that about 90 percent were false alarms. Everyone in our group agreed that UD needs to be a safer place so the students, professors and other people on campus do not feel scared.

Each member of our group researched different aspects about the safety on campus. We found there are 14 blue lights around campus and most of them seem to be in obscure locations. Another group member talked to SGA to see what they are doing about safety on campus. We have been informed that SGA is going on ride-alongs with Public Safety Officers to improve the relationship between the students and the Public Safety Officers. Also, Mom's Limo has about five cars running a night and it takes about an hour for them to show up.

Our group also looked at the reports in Flyer News to see what kinds of crimes were happing around campus. These crimes were mostly vandalism in parking lots and houses being broken into. From research, I found that on other campuses they have escort services. Also, the University of Cincinnati is trying to install more street lights around campus to reduce its crime rate. As a part of our research one person in our group interviewed 10 male and female students. Nine out of 10 female students said they felt unsafe around campus while seven out of 10 male students said that they felt safe on campus. The students said that having an escort service and installing more lights around campus are both good ideas.

Once all of our research was done, we compiled it and came up with several ideas. We thought the installation of more blue safety lights around campus would be a waste of UD's money. The idea of having an escort service is a good idea, but it would be costly. The installation of more street lights around campus would be a good idea, especially for places around campus that are poorly lit.

Another issue we found was the Public Safety Officers can't get around the center of campus that easily during the winter. If they were able to ride around the center of campus at night in golf carts, this could improve campus safety immensely.

A solution for the vandalism in the parking lots could be to install cameras to act as a deterrent, this way those guilty could be caught in the act.

All these solutions to the safety problem on campus would cost UD money, but it would be money well spent.

Douglas Wiersma

Sophomore

Elizabeth O'Gorman

Freshman

Anne Norton

Sophomore

David Bissinger

Sophomore

Julie Mertler

Freshman

Christopher Ambrose

Freshman