After months of talking about safety issues on campus, students finally have the opportunity to take action. The Department of Public Safety’s new Yellow Jackets Volunteer Program is an excellent idea — it’s a way to increase safety on campus and get more students involved. Both are important, but students need to take a more active role and the initiative to make the program a success.
The Yellow Jackets program, a group where students can volunteer for training and donate hours to patrolling campus at night, is a great start; however, the program depends on student involvement to keep it alive. So far, only 15 people have volunteered and been formally trained, including one faculty member. The Yellow Jackets are still networking and have a list of a few interested groups and individuals, such as the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity. Yellow Jackets student coordinator Meghan Madden said the fraternity has been very helpful in recruiting volunteers.
But unlike those few philanthropic individuals, many students don’t seem to take the program seriously at all. The first night out, Yellow Jackets volunteers were subjected to giggles and snickers from bystanders. The jocular attitude seems strange, considering the recent uproar over a perceived lack of campus safety and demand for more safety programs.
Where are all of the students who organized and attended the safety rallies to raise awareness about sexual violence on campus? Where are the students who urged administrators to take steps toward improving campus safety? Madden said that to her knowledge, none of the Radical Cheerleaders who helped bring the issue into the limelight have volunteered. Though it’s true some safety advocates have shown interest, more students should be stepping up to be Yellow Jackets volunteers.
Though the Yellow Jackets aren’t allowed to confront anyone or attempt to stop a crime, their goals — to escort students and staff and report suspicious activities to DPS — are important and should be treated as such. The bottom line is that the program has a lot of potential but will die if students don’t show more interest and take the Yellow Jackets seriously.
Just because no attempted assaults have been reported in the past few months does not mean campus safety isn’t an issue anymore. Students and faculty should be concerned with preventing future assaults and other crimes on campus. The Yellow Jackets program could be a powerful tool in this endeavor, but only if students — the program’s lifeblood — take more of an interest in it.
More students should support the University’s Yellow Jackets
Daily Emerald
May 12, 2002
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