Police Officers Make Harvard A Safer Place

During my six years as a proctor in the Yard, I relied on HUPD officers to help with my students' lock-outs, my lock-outs (with only minor teasing when they figured out I was the proctor), medical transports for some very sick students, harassing phone calls, minor thefts in the dorm, and one serious crime.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I acquired a brand-new reason to be grateful for the work of the HUPD. I was the victim of a purse-snatching while I was having an advising session with a student over an afternoon cup of coffee at Au Bon Pain.

An incredibly alert manager called "the police" who caught the thief outside Yenching Restaurant and gave me back my wallet. I realized half-way through the arrest that "the police" were not Cambridge Police, as I had expected for a theft in the Square, but the familiar HUD officers. The police response was quick, efficient, and courteous to both me and the thief--in short, everything I had always expected, and experienced, from the HUD.

As a proctor, I took it as a given that the Harvard officers were there to help me and my students. Now I know first-hand that the whole Square is safer and more secure, because of their work. Virginia L. Mackay-Smith '78   Assistant Dean of Harvard College