Over the years, RPI has taken action to try to improve student safety on campus. Safety escorts by Public Safety, emergency phones, regular patrols, and a plethora of other measures have been deployed to improve student safety and make the entire campus safe to traverse after dark.
Many of these measures have slowly begun to fall short or disappear. The “community patrols” in the Sherry Road area—the site of some serious incidents in the past few years—have all but vanished, and even the emergency phone poles have been wavering in their functionality. A phone in front of Sage Labs, for instance, can call out, but the microphone doesn’t function.
There are also some preliminary plans to consider deployment of emergency phones in the Sherry Road and east campus area. Administrators must take action on this proposal post-haste, as any delay is costing students safety and peace-of-mind. Also, any needed construction could be coupled with the renovations currently taking place on the east campus.
Yet, all of these security measures cannot match the human touch. Public Safety, which currently seems to be under-budgeted and understaffed, should increase its presence all over campus and strive for the shortest response-time possible while conducting regular patrols after dark all across campus. More officers need to be hired to reduce the overwhelming load put on those already at the department.
At the last Pizza with the President, Dr. Jackson told students that RPI would be trying to improve safety in the east campus area. For that to happen, a school presence needs to be established in the area in the form of emergency phones, constant patrols, and other safety measures.
There is currently a campus safety committee operating, with several students as members that could address many of these problems—and we urge them to do so. As long as students continue to feel unsafe walking to areas in south and east campuses in the evening, measures to improve safety must be pursued.
