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In response to the recent sexual assaults on campus, the University decided to conduct this semester’s campus safety walk earlier than usual.
Dean of Students Student Conduct Officer Robert Burford said the University was supposed to hold the safety walk by the end of March or early April but moved it to Tuesday night. Due to the sexual assaults, the University needed to assess the safety of the campus immediately, he said.
“It was unfortunate that (the assaults) happened,” he said. “But hopefully we can bring some good from those incidents.”
The first of the recent sexual assaults happened Jan. 27, when two men allegedly groped a female student at Johnson Field under her clothes. The second assault happened Feb. 4, when a man allegedly groped a female student over her clothes near Castetter Hall.
Burford said the safety walk is the students’ opportunity to make suggestions regarding campus safety to the administration. He said it also makes students aware of the safety features of the campus.
“It’s hard to stop every single thing from happening here on campus, but we got to make sure we get the whole community to be aware,” he said. “If they see something that doesn’t look right … they have to get involved and ask questions about things.”
The University started conducting campus safety walks in the 1990s, but the student community lost interest on it. The walks were canceled for four years but started up again in fall 2010 after a woman was stabbed outside the Anthropology Building earlier that year.
Burford said he now organizes campus safety walks once every semester, the last of which was in November.
Safety walk participants inspect campus lighting, the upkeep of buildings, the functionality of the blue-light phones and the crosswalks around campus. He said that despite the recent increase in sexual assaults on campus, he still believes that the campus is safe.
“I don’t think we lack any features,” he said. “I think the campus is safe at night just as how it is during the day. I just think we need to educate our students with the resources and information that we already have.”
About 10 UNMPD officers, members of the student patrol and about 50 UNM students participated in the safety walk.
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Oma E-Nunu, a resident adviser in Laguna Hall who participated, said RAs are required to attend the walk every semester.
E-Nunu said that although the increase in UNM security was fairly recent, he thinks the University is doing its best to help to prevent similar cases from happening. Still, he said the University could use more patrols from officers.
“If it wasn’t for all these groping incidents that happened, I don’t think we would have more security,” he said. “But I think they’re making a very honest effort so they can ensure the campus is safe.”
E-Nunu said he found five broken lights around Dane Smith Hall. He said he wants the University to put more lights in to prevent more assaults from happening, especially on the west side of campus, around the Engineering Building and along the pathway from Mitchell Hall to Castetter Hall.
“Most of these assaults, I assume, happen in the dark,” he said. “If they put more lights around campus and have people do more rounds, I think everybody should be fine.”
Burford said he expects the results gathered from the walk to be evaluated in the following weeks. He said the University will work to fix the issues as soon as possible, and that it will seek more funding from the Legislature for projects that it plans to start regarding campus safety.
