Tackling Safety

The fortress-like facade of Harvard’s iron gates has been cracked by the recent string of assaults around campus. Spurred by this alarming wave of attacks, Harvard has initiated a laudable campaign to bolster security. In the last few weeks, the College has extended shuttle and van operation hours, deployed more HUPD patrols, e-mailed safety alerts directly to students, launched the Harvard University Campus Escort Service Program (HUCEP) to replace the now-defunct SafetyWalk and created a centralized hotline (4-8237) to help students maneuver the new services and dispatch late-night police escorts. While Harvard’s recent moves are constructive and welcomed, the College can take further steps to improve campus safety by tweaking existing resources and incorporating new ones.

The HUCEP program, while a step in the right direction, should be modified to better meet student safety needs. The plan currently calls for roaming pairs of students beginning at 7 p.m. in three regions: the River Houses, the Yard and the Quad. But with three of the nine recent assaults occurring before 7 p.m., the escorts would be more effective if they began patrolling at dusk instead—hours earlier in the winter. Furthermore, given the huge area included in the River House and Quad zones, HUCEP ought to employ more than one pair of escorts in each of these zones.

These changes are crucial for the success of HUCEP, as is adequately publicizing the new services. Students cannot be expected to utilize the escort program if the phone number for the hotline is buried on an obscure website. The College needs to alert students more effectively about their safety options so that they can take better advantage of them.

Preventing future assaults also requires that the College inform students about attacks as quickly as possible after they occur. In recent weeks, HUPD and College administrators took the important step of e-mailing safety advisories directly to students, bypassing the unreliable, trickle-down flow of e-mails from HUPD to University officials to tutors and proctors. By contacting students directly, the College ensures that all students are privy to vital safety information in a timely manner. This new practice should become standard policy.

In advancing campus safety, however, Harvard cannot afford to have tunnel vision and focus solely on its existing safety resources. Currently, students who feel unsafe near residential Houses other than their own are denied keycard access between 2:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.; upperclass students who walk between the Science Center and River Houses at night cannot swipe into first-year dorms even at normal hours. Although students who feel uneasy can phone HUPD, waiting for the cruiser outside in the dark puts them in danger.

In order to avoid leaving students stranded, Harvard must establish Universal Keycard Access (UKA)—24-hour keycard access to every undergraduate residence hall. Although none of the recent assaults took place near the Houses, Harvard must not wait for such an incident to occur before instituting UKA.

The subject of an Undergraduate Council (UC) bill which the Committee on House Life (COHL) will consider next Thursday, UKA would allow students to take responsibility for their safety and swipe into a Harvard building if they feel threatened. Contrary to administrators’ concerns, UKA would neither increase crime nor the “piggybacking” of non-Harvard students. Since Quincy House instituted 24-hour keycard access in 1998, residents have not witnessed an upsurge in nighttime crime. Likewise, last year’s hour-and-half extension of keycard access from 1 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. in upperclass Houses did not affect the crime rate. Rather than furthering in-House crimes, extending keycard access can reduce crime by making the Houses safe havens for all students.

Off-campus, it is equally important that Harvard work with the city of Cambridge to light Cambridge Common. The area in and around the poorly-lit municipal park has been a crime hotspot for years. Harvard students, on their way to and from the Quad, frequently traverse the park at night—and are not likely to stop. That the Common is outside of the College’s official jurisdiction should not make it untouchable; where students’ safety is at stake, the College has an obligation to act.

UC President Matthew Mahan is currently initiating talks with Cambridge Mayor Michael A. Sullivan about security issues. Harvard must follow suit and engage the city in a safety dialogue—adding more field lights, making the lights brighter, installing “blue-light” call-boxes and increasing the presence of Cambridge patrols in the Common. Improving lighting and raising police visibility would deter potential attackers.

Admittedly, city officials are apprehensive about violating strict historical preservation requirements that forbid adding more lighting. But since three of the last assault victims near the Common have been Cantabridgians, city officials and residents could hardly disagree that they have much to gain from lighting improvements.

By cooperating with city officials and continually reviewing its own safety initiatives, the College can shed its false sense of security and move towards a real one.