Following the reported Oct. 9 sexual assault on a Wannamaker Dormitory resident, students, administrators and other members of the Duke community discussed how much convenience they would be willing to sacrifice for improved campus safety at a "town hall" meeting Monday night in the Bryan Center.
About 40 people, mostly residence coordinators and Duke Student Government legislators, attended the meeting, organized by members of DSG's student affairs committee. Four administrators spoke, listened to concerns and answered questions from the audience.
"At what point do we give up convenience to reduce risk?" Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, asked the audience. "We've enjoyed a certain level of convenience that we wish we could have. We'd like to go back," he said, adding that might not be possible.
Moneta and other administrators emphasized the importance of student responsibility in improving safety, and they also discussed more concrete initiatives they might undertake.
"Rational thinking on your part is a major part of how you're going to protect yourself and others," said Jim Clack, director of Counseling and Psychological Services, who received several shouts of "amen" during the meeting.
Moneta and Duke University Police Department Chief Clarence Birkhead asked students to take responsibility by serving as the "eyes and ears" of administrators. By reaching out to people who are frightened and by promoting safety-conscious discussion, Moneta said students can help prevent crime themselves.
Donna Lisker, director of the Women's Center, said this consciousness should extend beyond widely reported cases. She said sexual assault happens every week at Duke and that 80 percent of victims know their attackers. The most important precautions students can take is to stay in control of drinking and communicate more about sexual behavior, she said.
Throughout the meeting, administrators and students discussed specific security precautions, many of which had already been proposed.
When asked by DSG Vice President for Student Affairs and meeting moderator Troy Clair, almost everyone in the audience supported mounting security cameras outside all dorm entries to deter crime, though some students said camera surveillance inside dorms was going too far.
Clack expressed doubt about whether cameras could deter criminals who are not always thinking rationally. "That deterrence works for people who are actually thinking at the time that they might consider sexual assault.... But if your thinking is muddled... then you'll consider the consequences the next morning, and then it's too late," he said.
Birkhead also expressed concern that students might vandalize cameras and said he was working with Moneta on surveys to determine how effective cameras would be. The surveys would take time, Birkhead said.
Students also asked about installing DukeCard access to bathrooms. Moneta said that will also take time because there are over 500 bathrooms on campus. When asked, most audience members supported card access to all residential bathrooms.
Other students asked about a possible "safe-walk" program, providing escorts for students who feel uncomfortable walking alone at night. Though the University already has such a program, Birkhead said it was understaffed.
Other concerns that the audience raised included poor lighting in remote parking lots, panic buttons in bathrooms, doors and locks on shower stalls, Duke police patrol of the Trinity Park neighborhood and mandatory education programs for students.
Although she thought the meeting was a good starting point, freshman Linda Arnade, a DSG legislator, said she wished more students had been present.
"What I think was unfortunate was... that there weren't enough non-student-leaders here," she said.
In the future, Arnade added, smaller group meetings might be more effective discourse.
Sophomore Ashley Rudisill said she considered safety when choosing between Duke and the University of Pennsylvania.
"One of the reasons that I didn't choose Penn was because [its security precautions were] inconvenient," she said. "But at that point, I guess I hadn't known girls who were [assaulted] in a bathroom."
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