A year ago, about 40 undergraduate students, staff and University Police officers crowded into a room in the Stamp Student Union to discuss campus safety. Students asked for better lit parking lots and more responsive NITE Ride buses.
This year, the same forum drew only five students - three of whom were affiliated with university media.
On the heels of strings of robberies of GPS devices and laptops, the stabbing of a football player and an assault outside a fraternity house - in addition to shootings at other universities such as Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois - crime would seem to be the first thing on the minds of students, but the attendance at the forum didn't indicate that.
"I am disappointed," said William Fennie, chair of the University Senate's Campus Affairs Committee, which ran the forum. "We didn't do enough to get the word out."
The Campus Affairs Committee is mandated by the senate's Executive Committee to hold the safety forum each year and write a subsequent report about its findings and recommendations. Last year's forum was the first and did achieve some results, officials said, such as stationing an auxiliary police officer outside of McKeldin Library to escort students home if they requested and promoting crime awareness on the campus.
Despite these positive strides, though, students said crime isn't the biggest concern they have about campus life.
"I feel safe most of the time, unless I'm walking around at like 4 a.m. on a Friday night or something," said Drew Shah, a freshman letters and sciences major.
Other students said they feel safer this year than they have in the past, partly because on-campus crimes plunged last year to their lowest totals in a decade.
"I remember getting more crime reports last year than this year," said Tooba Mohammad, a sophomore physiology and neurobiology major.
Despite the lack of concern from students about campus safety, the people who attended the forum said they were worried about the possibility of a Virginia Tech-style incident on this campus.
"I'm concerned about those tragedies that might happen," said Regina Igel, a professor on the Campus Affairs Committee.
But police have limited options when it comes to preventing such an incident, Fennie said.
"These concerns speak not so much to police issues; they have to do with the psychological mindset of your students," Fennie said. "If you're going to do something preventive, you have to get into psychology."
Despite the forum's low attendance, the Campus Affairs Committee will still make recommendations in their report this year regarding campus safety, Fennie said. For example, the committee is considering setting up a website independent of University Police's on which students, faculty and staff could access a variety of safety information.
According to University Police Captain John Brandt, information about crime and safety on the campus will still be distributed by University Police. The department is required by federal law to distribute a brochure containing information to 80,000 university staff, students and faculty every year, and e-mail alerts and text messages about recent crimes are also mandatory, Brandt said.
"You're being told about everything that's happening," Brandt said. "But don't mistakenly think there's more crime happening here."
Still, those people who attended the forum said they remain concerned.
"From time to time, we see a police car; from time to time, we see a policeman, Igel said. "But all the time, we see bad news."
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