One of the staples of my college tours was the ubiquitous "blue light emergency phone." Inevitably, a parent would question the safety of 20-somethings cavorting around alone at all hours. The tour guide would then describe the alternative to parental supervision: tall, post-like phones with an emergency button located "all-over campus" that could be reached by campus police "in just a few minutes."
At this point I always imagined a scene somewhere between Scream and a game of tag: some buxom college girl runs screaming from a masked predator, only to reach the blue phone and cry, "Safe! Home base!"
"But don't worry," the college guide would say, "I've never heard of anyone having to use them."
An interesting concept, when you think about it. Placing emergency phones all over campus to improve safety, but then feeling unsafe if someone actually has to make a call.
This begs the question: How do students actually make use of the safety measures to prevent sexual assault at Dartmouth? Are they in place to make us feel good or do they actually help? A look at some of the buzzwords:
Sexual Assualt Peer Advisors (SAPAs): In preschool, you learn your ABCs; at Dartmouth, you learn your PAs. I have received some lovely Nalgenes from the various groups, but how often do they actually do peer advising?
SAPA Margot Hurley '07 said that while she has helped friends, she has never had a student she didn't know come to her.
"In that way, I suppose someone could argue that these students were coming to me simply because I was their friend," Hurley said. "However, I feel strongly that knowing I am a SAPA makes people much more inclined to talk to me about SAPA-related issues."
And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"I think one of the benefits of having such a small campus community is that pretty much everyone is bound to have a friend or acquaintance who is a SAPA," Hurly said. "And when someone who has been sexually assaulted speaks about it to a friend, wouldn't it be ideal if that friend, in addition to being a supportive listener, could provide information and resources?"
Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) Program: In 1995, Dartmouth joined RAD, a national program that hopes to empower women through self-defense. Offered every term, the program includes awareness and risk reduction techniques, voice commands and basic defense techniques. The program also has a lifelong self-defense return policy, so women can return to a RAD class anywhere one is offered, free of charge, to encourage a lifetime practice.
Over 400 women have been trained at Dartmouth, and the response has been positive.
Maybe even a little too positive.
"It's so empowering," Tovah Moss '07 said. "I feel much less helpless and confident that I could put up a good fight and possibly really hurt someone if need be. I was extremely proud of myself and my classmates."
Code Blue Emergency Phones: Most of the students I talked to didn't seem to know of anyone who had actually used them, or even noticed they existed. But maybe that's just because they aren't looking -- there are 31 around campus, placed so that any one phone is in view of another.
"I do know that they're pretty pervasive," Laura Pearlstein '07 said. "Knowing that, I do feel better knowing that in an emergency, all I'd have to do is press a button, especially when I don't have my cell phone."
Safety and Security officers report that the phones rarely get abused. They investigate every call, however, and can be on site in two minutes.
So who makes the calls?
S&S officers said calls are generally made by students locked out of dorms. Not exactly the terror-filled emergency I had once envisioned. But if emergency phones can keep forgetful '10s in miniskirts out of the snow and in their own dorms, I guess everyone's a little safer.
