Thirty-four blue lights twinkle across campus, each representing an emergency call box that, when activated, directly connects to the University’s Department of Public Safety.
The department is working with construction companies to figure out where establishing new call boxes would be most beneficial to students and faculty, DPS Assistant Chief Douglas Tripp said. At the price of $500 per security phone and several hundred dollars per blue light, Tripp said the money will most likely come from general University funds.
Pioneer Cemetery and the library are two such areas that need more call boxes, University freshman Emily Wilson said.
“I’ve never really had a problem on campus, so I’ve never had to use one of the boxes,” Wilson said. “However, I think there need to be more, especially in badly lit places like around the graveyard.”
Although the boxes are developed and maintained by the Telecommunications Services Department, DPS monitors all call box activity. Whenever a box is activated, DPS dispatch gains immediate access to speak with the individual on the other line. More often than not, however, the call is not an actual alarm, Tripp said.
“The vast majority of all activations are false,” Tripp said. “However, a DPS officer will respond to the scene whether or not the incident is real.”
The extensive phone system can be used for more than safety, Tripp said. Any time a person is in need of assistance, Tripp said the boxes can be used to immediately connect to help.
“For example, if a new student is lost on campus late at night, they could use the system to get a hold of DPS,” Tripp said. “We’d direct them to come to the DPS office and we would help them from there.”
University freshman Emily Hankins, who also believes more call boxes are needed on campus, said she’d be hesitant to use the system for such a purpose.
“I’d more likely call friends than contact DPS for directions,” Hankins said. “It would be sort of pathetic if DPS had to come find me on campus.”
Telecommunications Department representative Dave Barta said such an emergency phone system has been at the University for more than 40 years. Barta, who has worked at the department for 19 years, participated in the Campus Alarm Reporting Project. It established the yellow poles and blue lights and also updated the original alarm system known as the Gamewell Loop. A main problem with the Gamewell program, Barta said, was that once one alarm was activated, all other emergency boxes in that loop of alarms were rendered useless. In addition, Barta said the outdated materials used to construct the phones were prone to Oregon’s damp weather.
“Water kept condensing on the electronics,” Barta said. “It would short-circuit every night around 3 a.m. The DPS dispatchers would have this alarm going off again and again. It almost drove them crazy.”
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