Bursting a bubble that never existed anyway

Our campus is absolutely phenomenal in every possible way. The grass is always neatly cut and maintained, flowers droop off of trees and bushes to the end of every perfectly constructed winding path and students are always exquisitely outfitted and flawlessly put-together. Maybe the wizard was nothing more than a fairy tale, but it certainly seems that Oz has been brought to real life.

One important observation for every resident and visitor of our endearing fantasy world, however, is that it isn't anything more than the movie Oz ended up being; that is, the University of Richmond is an illusion, not a world in itself. Although anyone slipping through the campus entrance is a spectator to remarkable lines of difference between the environments on either side of it, these lines are imaginary -- there is no gate or wall to physically define the separation.

Our campus is not actually a bubble, however like one it may seem. We are surrounded by beauty and perfection, but this does not mean we are cut off from their opposites, or any other element of "badness" that unfortunately must combine with "goodness" to form a full concept of any reality. Our campus seems cut off and protected from the larger communities outside of it, but that doesn't mean that it actually is.

Anything that exists outside of the Richmond campus community exists inside of it as well. In fact, the students and faculty composing the campus population at our university are not significantly different or morally better than any other randomly chosen citizens across the nation (or even the globe); further, anyone who is not a registered member of our self-proclaimed bubble nonetheless has easy and direct access to it.

That being said, it is senseless to drop our defenses as quickly and willingly as we appear to do. Many of us enter this campus and forget every self-protecting behavior we have ever learned, to our own great disadvantage. We leave our computers out and open in the library for significant amounts of time, we drop our keys and phones on tables at D-Hall and walk away from them without so much as a backward glance, we leave our dorm and apartment doors unlocked and we walk across campus alone at night.

We all know it's true. What I can't help but wonder about all of us (myself definitely included), is what the hell are we thinking?! There are at least five reports of stolen laptops from the library per year (and I think that is an underestimate), and phones and keys — not to mention entire wallets — are constantly disappearing from the tables upon which they have been deserted. There have been thefts occurring in unlocked apartments and dorms on a rather consistent yearly basis ($3,000 in cash went missing from a dorm room just last year), and other intruders into these unlocked venues have ventured to do more than simply rob.

Sexual and physical assaults have been taking place over and over again in the early morning hours, on both sides of our rows and rows of unlocked doors. Cars have been smashed, hate crimes have been committed (I've heard of three in my three full years here thus far, and those are just the ones that have accidentally been released into student discourse), both males and females from all undergraduate years (and probably law students too, although I don't know that as fact) have been badly beaten up and students of both genders, all races and cultural backgrounds and any possible sexual orientation have been brutally sexually attacked or raped.

What is it that we are not comprehending? Nothing about this campus actually promises safety. We may know a lot of names, but not everyone is familiar. Pretty smiles and dresses and polos of the pastel persuasion do not justify the dropping of all personal guards. The university does not accept responsibility for any personal belongings lost on its grounds — including credit cards, car keys, cell phones, dignity, pride, self-respect and faith in others — because it is our job to keep track of these things for ourselves.

Our parents or guardians, at one point or another, probably advised us all to look both ways before crossing the street, and this is a practice with an important underlying message: The cars won't stop for you, and you need to stay aware of them and manage your personal safety around this assumption. While it's perfectly all right to feel comfortable around others, and even to trust select groups, it is vital for us all to mentally retain and internalize the notion that the world is run by people over whose actions we have no control, and each of our respective survivals require our own expectations of and preparedness for the unexpected.

My ex-boyfriend has an adorable shitzu named Oreo. She was an ongoing joke among my high school friends because despite a dog's natural inclination to self-protect around strangers until trust has been established, Oreo's greeting ritual consisted of rolling immediately onto her back. While this could be wildly amusing at times (the link between this tendency and promiscuity was apparently quite easy to create and elaborate upon), there were times when people would genuinely worry about the little dog. "She has no self defense!" is an expression that I clearly remember her owner exclaiming from time to time.

Our defenseless behaviors on campus are reminiscent to me of Oreo's greeting — do we roll onto our backs the second we move onto campus? It is our duty as independent human beings to look out for and take care of ourselves, or we simply do not deserve our own autonomy. I certainly do not intend to imply that a victim is EVER to blame for the crime committed, but I do strongly assert that it is high time that we as a working community move toward taking preventive measures before criminals attain an opportunity of any sort.

We are not vulnerable children, and while from time to time crime and punishment will run together, no one will babysit our safety for us. We are men and women approaching or in our twenties, and we are our own safeguards. If we ever want to enter and succeed in the "real world," of which our campus is surprisingly but unmistakably a part, then it is vital that we all get off our backs and stand on our own two feet.