I recently received an e-mail message regarding campus security at the University of Oregon as it relates to the recent event in Virginia. In it, the administration wrote, “The University of Oregon takes the safety of its students and personnel very seriously.” I believe you have good intentions, but I read this statement with a small amount of skepticism and frustration due to my experience with campus security regarding safety on the “North Site” part of campus.
We have tried repeatedly, for years, to try to get foot patrols on the North Site. Professor Sana Krusoe has contacted campus security with this request twice this year, and to no avail. On the rare occasion that campus security officers drive over here, they cruise by and never get out of their cars (except to give parking tickets). We want campus security personnel to walk through each building and to know the faculty, staff and students, and to treat us with respect. We want campus security personnel to know which building is which, and where the doors are.
In the past few years we have had several incidents that should be taken seriously by Public Safety, but they seem to have been disregarded. For a while there was a man who repeatedly exposed himself and masturbated in front of women students working alone. Last year, a man walked through a building naked from the waist down. One time, there was an intoxicated individual who was down on the ground and couldn’t get up. When the Public Safety officers were called and came by, they refused to get out of their car. During football season, we regularly have property destruction and general intimidation by drunk football fans returning from Autzen Stadium. Several students to whom I have spoken are afraid to cross Autzen footbridge at night, and with good reason. These are only the incidents of which I have heard. There are surely more.
Furthermore, the one phone in the ceramics building has been broken since I began working for the university in 2001. I have called to have this phone repaired more times than I can count. I have been informed that the phone works. It does not. The phone only works intermittently. This October, I was informed that the phone would be replaced. It has not been replaced.
There are numerous art studios and classrooms, a computer lab, an architecture shop, the Urban Farm, two outdoor kilns, the zebra fish research laboratory, the path to the football stadium, and physical facilities plant, all on the North Site. Our safety is important. While I don’t believe that policing is a sure route to safety in our communities, as often it is quite the opposite, foot patrols and a working phone for emergencies seems like the very least that could be done.
University President David Frohnmayer and University Public Safety, if you really care about safety at the University of Oregon, I challenge you to act on your words and do something about the security situation on the North Site.
Renae Kowitz is a ceramics studio technician at the University