Efforts to light up the campus underway

Security works with Senate to make campus safer

President Nancy Dye said it is as if they are propagating.

New emergency phones and blue lights are popping up all over, the result of a Student Senate proposal calling for better lighting on campus.

Along with the new lights, 14 new emergency phones will be installed. Right now, four of the phones are already up, according to Director of Safety and Security Keith James. The rest of them should be installed by the week after Fall Break, James said.

The first and tallest light was erected in Tappan Square. The idea, James said, is that people should be able to observe another blue light from any blue light on campus.

"There should not be a place on campus where you cannot see a blue light. They pretty much have it covered well," Charlene Cole-Newkirk, dean of Student Life and Services, said.

Junior David Heafitz helped develop the lighting project his first year as a Student Senator when he served on and helped revamp the Senate's Security committee. Heafitz and another senator organized a late night light walk, and designated 13 locations in need of better lighting.

Nothing was done with the proposal when it passed Senate until after a series of assaults occurred last fall. With the help of James, former Acting Director of Safety and Security Joe DiChristina and Director of Facilities Maintenance Gene Matthews, the proposal was acted upon and implemented.

Once the lights and phones are all installed and operational, James plans to send out an all-campus mailing explaining to students how they work.

Heafitz said he was happy with the support the project has received from the administration.

Next Wednesday, Heafitz and James will lead another campus walk, at 2 a.m., to make sure that everything that needed to be done to improve campus lighting was done.