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PSD's Nightwalk reveals problems
 Media Credit: Christine Johnson/Editor Jane Olsen, director of SCSU�s Women�s Center, SCSU President Roy Saigo and Public Safety Department Sergeant Sandra Johnson discuss an unlit area near Garvey Commons during Nightwalk Monday. The purpose of the event was to walk around the campus and list areas of safety concerns and possible solutions. Four different groups of people associated with SCSU covered the entire campus. Olsen�s group covered the �red zone,� which included the northern part of campus from Sixth Street to Fourth Street.
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 Media Credit: Christine Johnson/Editor Patrick Kempen, safety engineer at SCSU, writes down the list of concerns and suggestions that were compiled by the group covering the �red zone� during the Nightwalk Monday. After the four groups walked their zones on campus, they gathered in the Voyageur room in Atwood to share notes regarding safety on campus.
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Through the dark of night and the icy kiss of mother nature, approximately 40 people scoured the SCSU campus Monday in search of needed improvements.
The consensus: SCSU needs more lighting, more blue lights, more handicap parking and more sidewalks.
The first Nightwalk conducted since 1998 combined the efforts of students, student organization members, faculty, administration and general maintenance workers, and was directed by Miles Heckendorn, director of the Public Safety Department.
The group was constructed to examine the exterior safety needs on SCSU's campus, looking at different areas of campus for needs in lighting, telecommunications, traffic concerns, grounds issues, education and public awareness.
"We want to look at the campus and look for where there needs to be improvements," Heckendorn said. "This is for everyone's well-being."
Those who attended were split into four groups, each accompanied by a PSD employee.
Each group was assigned to a certain sector of campus where they spent the following hour looking at every area in the sector and writing down ideas for improvements.
"We want to prioritize these needs and make a list of the most important, relevant needs," Heckendorn said.
At the end of the hour-long trek, the groups reconvened to discuss and list all concerns found. Heckendorn will compile a master list of the suggestions and present it to SCSU administrators for further deliberation. That list will be available in seven to 10 days.
"We want to look at what do the people want," Heckendorn said. "We want to do the job people are asking (us) to do."
With the new purchase of Stateview apartments, there will need to be more lighting and blue lights phones in the vicinity.
Some of the concerns, such as lights that were out and minor repairs in various areas, are easy to fix and take little time and money. However, repairs such as adding sidewalks and a bigger Husky Hub in Q-lot can take a lot of time and money. With recent budget cuts, this could take an even longer time to fix.
"Some of these things we have to discuss with the city, like side streets," said Steve Ludwig, vice president of administrative affairs. "Some of those repairs might take a lot more time and might not even go through."
Those changes include parking around the Performing Arts Center, Atwood and Sixth Street. There has also been a request to lower the speed limit on some sidestreets. That would take legislative power.
Other ideas included a bigger shelter in Q-Lot, more blue light phones in Q-Lot, along with making the Husky shuttle run the entire length of Q-Lot instead of stopping at the north west side.
Other concerns are that there needs to be more handicap parking by Halenbeck Hall and curb cuts by the Miller Learning Resources Center.
"We can only put handicap parking in areas where the street meets the requirements for that type of parking," Ludwig said. "By Halenbeck there is limited space, plus the hill is too high a grade to put parking there."
Complications like the hill at Halenbeck prove to be even bigger problems; there are areas where improvements need to be made where city and state ordinances won't allow for them.
Some things that can't be fixed too easily are the sidewalks of the residential homes on campus, like those next to Barden Park and along Fifth Avenue.
Home owners along these roads often don't plow their sidewalks, even though the sections of sidewalk in front of their homes are their duty to keep clean.
This causes frustration for students, and many wind up walking in the street, which proves to be an increased danger.
Heckendorn had planned to do this nightwalk for quite some time. He chose to do it in the evening, when the safety concern is the highest.
From 1998 to 2001, Heckendorn reported that PSD had provided nearly 10,900 escorts to students.
There are 29 blue light phones and 40 elevator phones on campus, all wired into the PSD office.
Starting in 1999, PSD has offered free jump-starts to motorists on campus. They have attempted 1,824 and have been successful 1,321 times. That's a success rate of 72.4 percent.
According to Heckendorn, the average cost of a jump-start from a towing company is about $25; altogether PSD has saved students a combined total of $33,000 in jump-start costs alone.
"Public Safety is formed not as a cancerous tumor, but as a department dedicated to safety and its pursuit," Heckendorn said.
For now, however, Heckendorn's main goal is to improve on campus safety.
"We want the students to feel safe," Heckendorn said. "That's why we need to think about what needs to be done."
Heckendorn has plans to hold another nightwalk when there is foliage on the trees and different weather concerns, to see what the visuals bring then.
Nissa Billmyer can be reached at: [email protected]
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