As students and administrators continue to consider residential safety, Duke Student Government legislators unanimously voted to submit their recommendations to the administration at a meeting Wednesday night.
In addition, legislators adopted two other resolutions--one recommending improvements to undergraduate parking and transit and the other supporting the establishment of an Asian American Studies program, specifically curriculum and faculty development.
Presented by junior Cliff Davison, DSG vice president for facilities and athletics, and junior Alex Niejelow, a legislator, the safety resolution calls for card access to bathrooms, more blue safety phones--including strobe lights on the phones to alert officers when activated--and a minimum standard of lighting for all areas on campus.
Niejelow said camera surveillance was not included because legislators wanted to hear from students before they took a position on the issue.
Both Davison and Niejelow said card access to bathrooms would probably be safer and cost less than keys in the long run. "If someone loses a physical key in a dorm, you can't cancel that," Niejelow said. "Someone out there has that key."
Around campus, Davison hopes to encourage students to use blue phones more frequently by listing all appropriate uses on each device. "[A blue phone] is not just to call 911 for an emergency, but it can be used for safe rides, a safe escort and campus police," Niejelow said.
The resolution also recommended installing corner mirrors and motion-sensitive lighting in bathrooms, considering bathroom panic alarms, trimming shrubbery that blocks safety devices, increasing campus police bicycle patrol and raising student awareness of existing safety precautions in the Blue Zone.
Campus Council is scheduled to consider its own safety resolution tonight.
Presenting a resolution on parking and transit, Davison, senior Will Fagan, DSG attorney general, and sophomore Emily Brady, chair of the transit advisory subcommittee of facilities and athletics, hope to influence administrative policy decisions in February.
Legislators accepted three parts of the resolution--increasing buses for East-West and Science Drive routes during peak hours, incorporating DATA or TTA routes to service off-campus students, and opening the Bryan Center garage to undergraduates to make up for lost parking spaces when the Duke University Road lots close next fall.
However, legislators voted to strike a fourth part of the resolution, which recommended incorporating the Edens B and C lots into the Blue Zone and giving employees access to the Blue Zone on the condition that undergraduates who wished to park there had spaces.
DSG members were concerned that employees would be relegated to the back of the Blue Zone. "If I was a housekeeper and not in the greatest shape, I probably wouldn't want to walk all that way, something that they would have to do every day," senior Graham McWhorter explained. "I don't have much sympathy for the students," he said, adding that they are younger and more physically fit and do not use their cars as much as faculty do.
IN OTHER BUSINESS: The Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee presented the first draft of a bylaw that DSG will vote on next week.
Representatives from the USA Today newspaper readership program also presented, and legislators suggested placing newspapers in more locations around campus--for example, putting dispensers in the Sanford Institute of Public Policy and increasing the supply at the Marketplace.
Legislators also agreed to supply $600 to Duke Coffeehouse's programming fund request for the Karate Band.
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