Help students help themselves

I didn't sleep well last Thursday. I had one of those "half-asleep" nights in which you wake up and make the mistake of looking at your cell phone for the 10th time. By then, your mind is already racing, and you are fully awake. What made this Thursday night different were the two "Tickler" articles in The Collegian last week keeping me awake.

"The Tickler." While the word "tickle" implies playfulness, "The Tickler" gets his jollies and grants himself power by touching unwilling Westhampton women in the University Forest Apartments. And, in some cases, "forcefully" tickles, as Alex Child mentioned in The Collegian article last week. Additionally, while this article mentions that the previous Tickler incident occurred in September 2008, it is common knowledge (via word-of-mouth) among students that The Tickler has been popping up in apartments for the past two years and throughout every semester.

So, needless to ask: What is the university doing about this? Have we received any e-mails? Have we gotten any advice in terms of taking down sorority door-decorations or any other "clues" that would give away a woman's apartment? We did last week, thanks to Liz Monahan's OpEd on The Tickler.

Last week, everyone at the university received an e-mail that stated some university men were "attacked" by strangers without provocation. This type of incident is acknowledged, but when the continuous safety of the UFAs, and, in particular, the women's apartments, is being breached, this is not acknowledged. In a similar vein, I heard a rumor last Friday morning that two Westhampton women were abiding by the buddy-system (using proper weekend-safety procedures) last weekend and were raped near Atlantic House.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable that the university at large has not received an e-mail about this notifying students to take extra safety precautions. Where is the justice for these women as well as all Westhampton women? The alleged IM Field attack last spring, the rape in LoRo? There aren't any notifications, with, perhaps, the exceptions of the incredibly brief "Police Reports."

For the majority of my time here at Richmond, I have felt safe. I have enjoyed "the bubble" in the sense that I love how Richmond is its own community.

However, one huge promise the university makes is on-campus safety and its importance in sustaining a healthy campus environment. We do, of course, have our own police force, which does lend a certain amount of safety on campus. If I'm in trouble, yes, I'm going to call the University Police. I trust and respect them to help me in a crisis situation. But I can't help wondering if it wouldn't be better if they gave students the tools to keep themselves safe instead of arriving after the fact and garnering what little evidence they can in order to catch a criminal.

Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to defame the UR Police Department, which is admired for the performance of its job. But when your jurisdiction is a university campus where education and learning are the name of the game, doesn't it make sense to include safety training as a part of the curriculum?