Night Walk participants gather before the walk. (Tarek Anthony/Emerald)
On Wednesday Nov. 8, the University of Oregon held its annual “Night Safety Walk.” The event, which was open to all UO students, staff and Eugene community members, aims at increasing a sense of safety and security on campus.
The event began with refreshments while participants engaged in an overview of past safety improvement projects, discussion of different walking routes and instructions for participating in the walk. Teams of participants and administrators then branched off in groups from the EMU. Using their mobile devices, participants accessed the UO “Safety at Night Map” and dropped location “pins” on places in need of improved lighting, landscaping and hardscaping that would improve on-campus safety.
The UO Safety at Night Map is a year-round safety resource for students to access pre-identified “Night Safety Routes” on campus, locations of E-Phones and the ability to report night safety concerns on campus via the same pin-drop system used during the walk. Other night safety features UO offers include free UOPD escorts, DuckRides and discounted Lyft rideshare rides.
The Night Walk is an annual tradition that has been occurring on the UO campus for over 40 years. It is sponsored by ASUO, Campus Planning and Facilities Management, Office of Dean of Students, UO Police Department, UO Safety and Risk Services and the office of the Vice President of Finance and Administration.
This year turned out a record number of participants. According to OSPRIG representative and Night Walk organizer Olivia Heffernan, they had planned for around 40 participants; by Tuesday afternoon, over 77 participants had registered for the event and with unregistered students and staff also showing up to participate in the walk the grand total of participants was 102.
“I want to say thank you to the 77 [registered] people that filled out that sheet, that I sent out over and over and over to try to get you out here. Thank you so much,” Heffernan said.
Participants gathered in groups of 4-8 people led by various UO administrators, UOPD community service officers and UOPD Chief Jason Wade. Each group leader received a post-it note with a designated section of campus they were to cover with participants. The groups then left the EMU and spread around campus pinpointing locations in need of improvement. The walk lasted around 30-45 minutes depending on the group. At the end of their respective routes, groups reconvened at the EMU where they were served dessert and had the opportunity to speak to various administrators.
Current safety innovations underway on campus include a gradual replacement of all emergency “E-Phones” used to report emergencies on campus. The E-phones feature a small yellow box identifiable by a bright blue light and emergency call button. UO is in the process of replacing the outdated boxes with a similar system but updating them to feature taller and more identifiable towers with some featuring surveillance cameras.
“[There are] three different versions of our E-phone you’re gonna see, shorter ones with a little blue light on top… we’re in the process of trying to swap those out for newer versions, which are much taller, some of which have cameras up on top and some don’t,” Chief of Staff and Senior Director of Operations for Safety and Risk Services Krista Dillion said. “Outside of Tykeson [Hall] on 13th [avenue is] one of the newer versions, when you’re out and about, we are interested in your feedback [on locations of E-phones],” Dillion told attendees.
According to a UO CPFM staff member who spoke at the event, UO CPFM were able to gather hundreds of data points in a large spreadsheet detailing all the attended “pins.” The 102 participants “pinned” 115 lighting, 14 hardscape, 7 landscape, and 14 miscellaneous issues. CPFM is now in the process of going through the large amounts of data, fact-checking reports and then will build a plan on how to effectively and efficiently make the necessary improvements. CPFM will release a summary of all planned repairs sometime next month.
