Saint Mary’s campus safety held its third annual safety walk-through Wednesday night, highlighting improvements to campus safety and areas for improvement.
Phil Bambenek, director of campus safety, said his department has seen very little disturbances lately.
“Not a lot of things happened on the campus. We like it that way,” he said. “One way to keep it that way is to stay vigilant about safety issues.”
Each year, campus safety invites a group of students who “see campus in a different way” — usually athletes and representatives from student government — to join them on the walk-through, according to associate dean of students Shay Schneider.
Along the walk, Bambenek pointed out various safety improvements to campus and asked the students which areas they feel uncomfortable walking through, especially at night. Though campus safety has a “multi-year plan” in place, Bambenek said his team factors in what students bring up on these walks in their decision making.
Currently in the works is a pedestrian loop to get runners and walkers off the road-way between Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame.
“[The loop] will give them a dedicated pathway,” executive director of facilities Ben Bowman said. “It will be an almost two-mile loop, once completed … and we’re gonna try and light it all.”
Though there is not a target completion date, Bowman said part of the current strategic plan is to raise money for the pathway. It will run along the riverbank by Holy Cross College and the athletic fields, he said.
Bambenek also highlighted the installation of new lighting on the center of campus, an upgrade of the existing lighting to brighter and more long-lasting LED bulbs, as well as moving some bushes away from the edge of sidewalks as other recent improvements to campus safety. Blinkie, the shuttle that runs between Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame, also has a new tracking feature, available on the BusWhere app.
Bambenek said escorts from the parking lot are the number one safety request he hears from students. Blinkie stops by the parking lots every 15 to 20 minutes, but if students just miss Blinkie, they can end up waiting around.
“If you just missed Blinkie and you’re pulling back into the parking lot … he can loop back around,” Bambenek said. “They do need to stay on a bit of a schedule, but … it’s more question of communicating with us than lack of availability of services sometimes.”
Campus safety continues to maintain the emergency blue light phones, though Bambenek said he can count the number of times a student has actually used them.
“People still like having [the blue light phones] there, so one of the things we’re looking at doing with those is coming here and changing those over to video phones. We can monitor the areas with cameras because they’re in good locations for cameras and that as well,” Bambenek said. The entrances to residence halls already have cameras to monitor campus, he added.
In addition to installing cameras, Bambenek said that campus safety is considering lighting “the island” and partnering with First Source Bank to provide clip-on reflector lights to students.
Student Government Association (SGA) president Scarlet Peters said her biggest safety concern is walking on a road where cars drive, but that the new pathway would provide a great running route.
The SGA suggestion box is open, but Peters said that they haven’t heard any suggestions from students about campus safety.
“As of right now, since it’s still pretty early, we haven’t heard anything, but you know, now that it’s starting to get darker earlier and staying darker later, so it could change,” Peters said.
Bambenek said that it’s his job to be a little “paranoid” and consider the worst thing that could happen.
“One of the things that we bring into this conversation is the idea of being responsive to student needs with an understanding maybe that everything can’t happen immediately,” Bambenek said. “But you know if it’s a serious safety concern, it can happen pretty quick.”
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