Campus safety was a popular topic at senate March 14.
SGA hosted Coffee on Cruz with a whiteboard to collect student responses about how safe they felt on campus. Responses on the white board covered topics ranging from concealed carry to Mercer Police response time to lighting and cameras around campus.
The most consistent response, however, was that students feel safe on campus.
“There were some responses that obviously I can’t do anything about, like I can’t get rid of the bridge, that’s a Macon road,” said Senator Olivia Buckner, the Campus Safety chairperson. “The only thing I can do is try to get more MerPo cops to patrol around that area more and maybe get cameras, which is what I’m going to try to do today.”
She added that she is looking into the cost of increasing cameras around that area.
Buckner, Associate Vice President for Facilities Russell Vullo, Police Chief Gary Collins, and Dean Pearson walked around campus to address issues brought up by students and other senators in their second Campus Safety Walk of the 2015/2016 school year. During the previous campus safety walk they found that four of the blue lights did not work properly either because the phone or the light was not fully functional.
After the walk Monday, Buckner confirmed that all of the blue lights on campus are now fully functional, except one that is being replaced because it was hit by a car.
She also said the committee is trying to get a blue light put in where the pedestrian bridge will be built in anticipation of heavy student traffic at night. There are already many cameras there, and she anticipates more will be put in.
The broken Dowell, Sherwood, and Mercer hall doors were also brought up in senate and addressed during the safety walk.
At this time these doors will let students out, but will not let residents tap into their building. The Dowell door has been broken for three weeks.
Although the doors do not fall under the Safety Committee's responsibility, Vullo will be getting in contact with Residence Life to get those fixed.
There was some concern that the Engineering parking lot can be difficult to get out of and sometimes even dangerous.
Vullo will hopefully be putting up a mirror in the Engineering parking lot to help with that issue, according to Buckner.
There will be a Bear Forum on campus safety April 4 for students to voice any other concerns or solutions they may have.
Fresh Off The Docket
