Up to three students can now request a secure pickup at night from Safety and Security. Previously, only a single individual could use the Safe Ride service. The policy, amended earlier this month but not announced to campus, followed requests from students who said that the former policy made them feel vulnerable, Safety and Security director Harry Kinne said.
Several students interviewed said they thought the new policy was beneficial because it eliminated the possibility of one person waiting alone for a long period of time and also prevented groups of students from being split up.
“The assumption is that if you have two girls, three girls or boys walking home together, there’s safety in numbers, but stuff could still happen,” Samantha Modder ’17 said. “Just because you’re in a group doesn’t mean you feel safe.”
Invo Chami ’16 said that she first heard about the changes during a discussion held at the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault symposium on April 4, and L.J. Shelven ’17 said he learned of the new policy through his roommate, who works for Safe Ride.
Stephanie Uhrig ’14 said she thought the new policy was a positive step.
“It’s smart, especially in the winter when it gets dark early and it’s actually kind of dangerous to get across campus in the bad weather,” Uhrig said. “I think that it’s just more efficient to carry more people at once.”
George Sy ’15, who said he often uses Safe Ride, also said he approved of the changes but wondered how the new policy would work with recording students’ identification numbers.
The “Freedom Budget” demanded that Safety and Security change the Safe Ride policy to serve groups as well as individuals.
“People who are marginalized on this campus are not automatically safe just because they’re walking in a group,” the document said.
Campus safety issues garnered attention this weekend after Hanover Police were notified of three instances of theft at the College.
The first report, received just after 1 a.m. on Saturday, notified police that electronics had been stolen from backpacks in the basement of Aquinas House, the Catholic student center.
Aquinas House will not change its open-door policy, Father Brendan Murphy said, though it might look into limiting access to the building in order to better understand who is coming and going.
“One of the great blessings of Aquinas House is that we’re open 24/7 to students, and I wouldn’t want one unfortunate incident like this to change that,” Murphy said. “Students have been notified that we take this seriously and have been told to be aware of their surroundings and to be careful about where they leave their belongings.”
At 2:21 p.m. that afternoon, the police received a report of theft from a vehicle that had been parked overnight at 34 West Wheelock Street. The vehicle was also reported to have been damaged.
The third report of theft came in at 12:33 a.m. on Sunday, notifying police that personal items had been stolen from a vehicle parked on Gile Drive.
Hanover Police also received a report at 2:21 p.m. on Saturday of unauthorized use of and vandalism to a vehicle taken from behind Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority house.
The vehicle was found in the parking lot of the Roth Center with interior and exterior damage, including slashes to the passenger seat and a cracked GPS display.
While 10 out of 30 students interviewed were aware of the thefts and car break-ins that had occurred over the weekend, most students interviewed expressed surprise upon hearing the news.
“I feel like at Dartmouth it’s really easy to fall into this little safe bubble,” Tasha Wilkins ’15 said. “And then things like this happen, and it kind of brings you back to reality and makes you realize that you need to be more aware of things that are going on and that this is still a college campus.”
Uhrig said that, though she was surprised about these thefts, she has noticed others occurring during midterms and finals periods, when students are more apt to leave their belongings unattended.
The College’s most recent Clery Act report noted a total of 16 burglaries occurring in 2012, nine of which occurred on campus property.
According to the College’s Clery report, “burglary” constitutes the “unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft.”
