There is no student safety problem that cannot be fixed with a good piece of legislation, said Anne-Therese Ryan, the Residence Hall Association vice president of student affairs.
Ryan helped moderate a town hall meeting Monday night to address campus and residence hall safety.
Ryan works to take student concerns about safety and draft them into legislation to present to IU administration.
“The reason for this isn’t just to get angry about safety issues that we think we can’t fix,” Ryan said. “The goal here is to take the issues we find most pressing and write something that can fix them.”
Better campus lighting, pedestrian safety and clearer emergency alerts systems were among the main issues addressed by students at the meeting.
“Lighting in places that are dangerous at night is really the first step to changing a lot of the campus’ safety problems, so it would be great to get the administration on board with that,” senior Taylor Hurt, an RA in Collins, said. “I care a lot about my residents’ safety and my own safety, and it sometimes feels more unsafe than ever here.”
Hurt said she thinks fixing problems with safety on campus at night could help with a decrease in assaults and other crimes.
“There have been so many sexual assaults and other deaths on campus just in the last semester,” Hurt said. “We say we have a culture of care, but how are we actually holding students and administration accountable?”
The campus emergency alert system, which uses calls, texts and emails to inform students of dangerous situations, was also addressed.
“The notifications are important, but they don’t always make sense to me,” freshman Kaylee Slont said. “A lot of times we’ll get a second alert that says the scene is safe, but they didn’t find the suspect, and that always makes me a little nervous.”
Many students also expressed concern over building accessibility on campus. Some doors, bathrooms and stairs on campus are not adequately equipped for students with disabilities, freshman Dylan Moore said.
Trenton Dunham, RHA student advocacy committee chair, said while solutions are not often among student discussion, problem solving is where the RHA steps in.
“We sometimes feel like students don’t fully grasp their own impact on campus policy,” Dunham said. “We want the RHA to be a channel students know they can go through to bring up concerns, and then we can go ahead and press to make those changes.”
The RHA also takes topics discussed at IUSA meetings and helps push for their legislation, Ryan said. In the last year, the RHA helped create the Spectrum learning community, a residence center allied with the GLBT student support services office.
The RHA will continue having town halls on different subjects throughout the semester in order to seek feedback for legislation, Ryan said.
“We’re happy even if only one student shows up,” Ryan said. “That’s one voice that we didn’t have yesterday.”
