Keeping Columbians safe, not scared

[Correction appended]

Following a flurry of security alerts e-mailed to students this summer, the safety of the Columbia campus and its surrounding neighborhood has become a greater concern to many students. To ensure that Columbia and Morningside Heights remain safe for all, students should familiarize themselves with Columbia’s Department of Public Safety’s various resources, and administrators should review and work to streamline the current safety notification system.

According to Public Safety, crime surrounding Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus has decreased from this time last year. However, students have been notified of at least five criminal activities since July 20, after having received a similar number of security alerts during the entire 2008-2009 academic year. This sharp increase in e-mailed safety alerts despite the actual fall in crime highlights both students’ need to continue to pay attention to their own safety and the need for school officials to review the existing notification system. Currently, after a crime has been committed that has the potential to impact Columbia students, Public Safety issues safety alerts to various Columbia schools, whose administrators then decide whether or not to forward the security alerts to students. Though administrators have done well to alert students of recent crimes, the current system leaves potential for students of different schools who reside in the same area to be notified of different crimes, which is unacceptable.

Public Safety, after determining that students should be notified of a particular crime, should send electronic security alerts directly to students within the affected area, regardless of school affiliation. If a robbery takes place near the Morningside Heights campus, for example, all students in that area—undergraduate and graduate students alike—ought to be notified of the potential threat. A timely notification would then allow students to take advantage of Public Safety’s myriad services, with which students must reacquaint themselves. Services such as safe haven locations, marked by a shield on the storefront window, or the Columbia escort service, should be in students’ minds. Every student should have Public Safety’s emergency number, 212-854-5555, programmed into his or her cell phone. Students can learn about and take advantage of Public Safety’s many services at today’s Security Awareness Day fair on College Walk where services ranging from Mac Phone Home technology to free bike registration will be available.

The safety of those affiliated with Columbia is of utmost importance and should be treated as such by students and administrators. As Public Safety’s motto, “Crime prevention is everyone’s business,” makes clear, everyone is responsible for providing and promoting safety within the Morningside Heights community.

Correction: An earlier version of this staff editorial featured an inaccurate teaser. We regret the error.