Campus Safety Issues Leap to the Fore

Author: Claire Bourne News EDitor

Both students and administrators were considering the question of safety on the Middlebury College campus long before Executive Council arrived at the decision to lock all dormitory entrance doors following the robbery and assault of a Hadley resident on Friday morning. Student groups, including Feminist Action at Middlebury (FAM) and a handful of Student Government Association (SGA) members, have cited both a lack of adequate pathway and parking lot lighting in addition to an insufficient number of emergency call boxes on College grounds as hazards to student security. Although these issues have been circulating around campus for some time, advocates for greater safety measures say that now more than ever the College needs to make a greater effort to address student security.



The Blue Phone Dilemma



Before this semester, the College's only emergency call boxes were located in peripheral parking lots. SGA President Brian Elworthy '02.5, whose presidential campaign platform last spring called for increased measures to ensure student safety, worked with Student Liaison to Public Safety Kristie Gonzalaz '02 earlier this year to have call boxes installed outside both Proctor and McCullough.

Because the prospect of implementing a blue phone system was rejected by the administration, Elworthy said, "We had to reach a middle ground." This consisted of installing emergency phones in "prominent locations," he continued. Elworthy is currently working with Facilities Planning to install another call box near the McCullough entrance door closest to Stewart.

"Some people are pleased [with the call boxes], but some think they are not an adequate substitute [for blue phones]," remarked Elworthy of his discussions with students.

Sophomore Senator Erin Sullivan '04.5 is one student who strongly supports the implementation of blue phones. "Will we wait until a girl is raped before we put up blue phones? People think that since we're in the middle of nowhere we have nothing to fear, but isolation invites incidents like this," she asserted.

Administrators, as well as trustees, have raised concerns that the phones' blue lights would mar the campus' landscape and suggest to visitors and prospective students that Middlebury is not a safe place.

"I realize that we live in a relatively safe, secluded area on a beautiful, rural campus. In the case of blue lights, however, I think it is better to err on the side of caution than to worry about aesthetics," Environmental Quality (EQ) Executive Board Member Rachel Cotton '03.



'Finding the Light'



After the administration defeated a proposal to install a blue phone system on campus, Elworthy affirmed that advocating for more lights was "the first step" to ensuring "a more enhanced safe environment."

With Elworthy's support, Sullivan and Kate Moffett '04, director of student organizations for SGA and a member of FAM, have launched an initiative to explore the possibility of installing more lights on campus.

"Middlebury has traditionally been a safe campus, so it may not seem important to be concerned about the personal safety of students here," Moffett noted. "However, working to make the campus better lit is like asking a driver with a perfect record to wear her seatbelt."

Early last week, Sullivan and Moffett invited a group of students, including Co-Coordinator of FAM Joya Scott '03 and SGA Director of Facilities Planning Andrew Savage '03, to participate in a safety walk around the College grounds to see which areas needed to be better lit. Due to inclement weather conditions the walk was postponed until Winter Term. "Our hope," said Moffett, "is to be able to take [the walk] without thoughts of final papers or exams distracting us from devoting our fullest attention to the lighting."

After the walk has been completed, she and Sullivan will co-author a brief report on their findings to present to Elworthy and to members of the administration. "We will also compare our work to the work done several years ago [after a similar walk] to see what changes have been made and what still needs to be done," Moffett explained. If the report finds substantial changes necessary, Sullivan will work with Elworthy and members of the Presidential Cabinet to formulate a concrete plan and may also submit a resolution regarding increased campus lighting to the SGA Senate.

"There have been a couple of unsettling incidents this fall, and while neither has posed any long-term concern, better lighting helps eliminate potential for future problems," Moffett elucidated. "There is no reason to take unnecessary chances."

Elworthy said he acknowledged concerns that adding more lights might "disrupt the aesthetic of the campus" but qualified his decision to support Moffett and Sullivan's proposal by pointing out that many students "are not comfortable walking around campus at night."

"Even if one person feels safer as the result of better lighting and if even one attack is prevented, the excess energy consumed by the lights is well worth the price," Cotton asserted. "We should not need a tragedy to reevaluate the College's seemingly illogical lighting policy."



Environmental, Aesthetic Impact



Ben Brouwer '04, also a member of EQ's executive board, called the amount of light pollution currently generated by the College "obscene." Not only would adding lights to campus "make appreciation of our glorious surroundings more difficult," Brouwer continued, but it would also increase the College's energy consumption.

Brouwer is not the only College community member concerned about the prospect of a more comprehensive lighting system. Gamaliel Painter Bicentennial Professor of Physics Frank Winkler, who also teaches astronomy, pointed out that the darkness of the sky was "increasingly falling victim to encroachment of light that emanates from urban and suburban areas, and from our own campus and town." He stressed the need to protect the environment's beauty "for ourselves and our heirs" and agreed with Brouwer that the College had "put up so many lights" that it was difficult to find a spot to view the night sky "without some lights shining in your eyes."

Winkler said that he was not opposed to the idea of installing more lights but stressed that the College should be "as intelligent and discriminating as possible about what kind of lighting we use and where we use it."

He noted that Middlebury had begun to address the issue of energy efficient lighting by "using primarily sodium lamps, which use less energy to produce a given amount of light than most alternatives" but added that the College could "do even better" by choosing "the best lighting fixtures" that direct light downward rather that towards the sky. He called this option "a win-win situation," saying that not only would it save energy and protect the sky, but that the campus would "get better lighting."

Uniformity of illumination is another one of Winkler's concerns. "If we identify the darkest areas [of campus] and plant lights there, then there will be new darkest areas. This can escalate indefinitely," he said. He recommended that pathways connecting major buildings and parking lots be well lit, stating, "There's no reason that all of Battell Beach needs to be lit up as it is now."

The idea of linking major academic buildings with a central walkway is in no way a new one. In fact, the Middlebury College Master Plan contains designs for an "Academic Arc" — a landscaped, well-lit walkway with pedestrian amenities such as benches that would connect Bicentennial Hall, Le Château, Johnson, Old Chapel Road, the Center for the Arts and finally the sports complex.

In contrast to the College's current "patchwork of walks and mud paths," the Arc would serve as the campus' "main street,
" explained Christian A. Johnson Professor of Art, Art History and Architecture Glenn Andres. Pedestrian traffic would therefore be concentrated along this walk, making the development of a proper lighting system "feasible," he continued.

Andres also pointed out that the creation of the Arc would ease concerns about more lights spoiling the aesthetics of the campus. "If we do it in the right way, it would look like a natural landscape," he remarked.

For now, the Arc is simply a concept and will probably not be seriously considered by the College until current construction projects have been completed. "We can hatch all the super-plans we want, but until they are adopted by the Board of Trustees, they remain hypothetical," Andres explained.