Northwestern will take several new measures effective today to increase the safety of students on and off campus in response to attacks on students this fall, Vice President for Student Affairs William Banis announced Wednesday.
Associated Student Government senators also unanimously passed a bill Wednesday condemning the attacks, expressing sympathy for the victims and their families and supporting the university’s efforts to make students safer.
In a campuswide e-mail message, Banis said newly hired security officers will start patrolling the Evanston Campus by foot today. Other new security measures include: increased University Police patrols of the areas where attacks have occurred, a task force to investigate the attacks, a partnership between UP and the Evanston Police Department to patrol areas near campus, and additional staff and cars for the Escort Service.
The university’s response comes after a spate of robberies and assaults on students, most recently the robbery of a male student on the 600 block of Foster Street at about 2:15 a.m. Sunday and the battery of a female graduate student on the 600 block of Clark Street at about 2:15 a.m. Saturday.
Banis said the investigation is ongoing but, as of now, the two crimes appear to be related and not committed by NU students.
“We would be very surprised if these thugs turn out to be students,” he said, “because students just don’t do that in our experience.”
In ASG’s discussion of its bill condemning the attacks, Weinberg junior John Hughes called the incidents “the most serious physical assault against students in recent memory.” Hughes, ASG’s City Council liaison, said senators should consider renewing the distribution of “rape whistles” on campus.
“Northwestern is not safe by any means,” said Hughes, a former DAILY forum editor and board member for Students Publishing Co., which oversees THE DAILY.
But off-campus Senator Meredith Kesner questioned the focus of the ASG bill and the effectiveness whistles would have had in deterring recent assaults.
“I don’t understand what a rape whistle really does,” she said. “I’d rather put those funds on greater police patrol. This isn’t something on which we can be complacent.”
Banis told THE DAILY on Wednesday that much of his work on the new safety measures has been behind the scenes in recent days. He said he has met with staff including representatives of Student Affairs, UP Chief Bruce Lewis, and Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Eugene Sunshine. Banis said university officials have been looking at strategies to address the incidents and gaps in current safety procedures.
One such gap, which Banis called “unacceptable,” was a shortage of cars and staff for the Escort Service.
“There was a blip with the Escort Service this past weekend,” he said. “Because it was homecoming, some of the individuals who were scheduled to work did not.”
As a result, he said only one escort car was in service Saturday night — the night of the assault on Foster Street. In addition to hiring more staff members to avoid a repeat of that problem, Banis said the Escort Service today will get two larger vehicles that can handle more than the three passengers currently allowed.
Communication senior Heather Redding, student coordinator for the Escort Service, said the service would start using the larger vehicles tonight. Redding said she also hopes to increase her staff from 25 to 35 students.
The problem over the weekend was that many workers were called out of town at the last minute for a debate tournament, she said. Redding said that a larger staff would make it easier for the Escort Service to find replacement drivers, which could solve last-minute problems like last weekend’s.
While increasing the size of the Escort Service staff and the capacity of cars are good ideas, Redding said the changes also could slow down the service.
“If we fit more people in the cars, it’s also going to mean more time bringing each person,” she said. “I’m not sure if it’s going to increase ridership at all.”
Weinberg senior and EmPower director Vickie Cook said another problem with hiring more Escort Service workers is that the positions do not pay well and require more work than other on-campus jobs. The university should consider offering higher wages or other incentives to attract more people, she said.
But a bigger problem for safety is the shortage of UP staff to patrol the Evanston Campus and the surrounding area, Cook said.
“There are only — for the Evanston Campus — 23 sworn officers who work here,” she said. “For the amount of area they have to cover, that’s really not very many people.”
Cook said she and other representatives for Women’s Coalition will argue at a quarterly campus safety meeting today that the university should hire more officers as soon as possible. As a whole, however, she said she supports all the new measures outlined in Banis’ e-mail.
Although Banis said he hopes the new security precautions will keep students safe, he said the danger to students walking on or near campus can never completely be eliminated.
“No amount of good information or prevention is going to stop street criminals from coming on campus, from attacking students on streets adjacent to campus,” he said.
THE DAILY’s Jared Goldberg-Leopold, Sarah Halasz and Alison Knezevich contributed to this report.
