Cam­pus Safety Dis­cusses Se­cu­rity

MISHAWAKA- Bethel’s cam­pus has seen an in­crease in re­ported in­ci­dents of theft com­pared to last year. Since Aug. 1, there have been 17 to­tal theft re­ports, com­pared to 11 to­tal theft re­ports this time last school year. Of the 17 re­ports for this year, 14 of them have been thefts from ve­hi­cles.

“One of the big things that we are find­ing with this is that in al­most all of the cases, the ve­hi­cle is un­locked,” Di­rec­tor of Cam­pus Safety Paul Neel, said. 

There has been a rise in thiev­ery in the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties as well, so stu­dents are en­cour­aged to take pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures when it comes to safety. What safety looks like for stu­dents has changed over time, es­pe­cially with the move to a more open cam­pus that took place a few years ago. At one point in Bethel’s his­tory, there were gates at al­most every road en­trance into Bethel, with the ex­cep­tion of the main en­trance by the Helm, that were closed and se­cured at cur­few every night. 

“Those were taken away a few years ago as part of the plan and for the over­all aes­thet­ics of cam­pus, be­cause a lot of that stuff was in bad re­pair and it was old fenc­ing that just did­n’t look well,” Neel said. “And we even had some stretches of fences that we took down; and part of that was . . . to have an open feel­ing cam­pus that felt com­fort­able in­stead of hav­ing some­thing that felt caged in.”

As of right now, there has been no dis­cus­sion to re­turn the gates to the road en­trances lead­ing into cam­pus. 

“Un­less we were to put large amounts of fenc­ing in dif­fer­ent places, putting the gates up would do very lit­tle to help us,” Neel said. "It would have to be a cer­tain type of fenc­ing that for one, is ex­pen­sive, and two, it would also then change the feel of the cam­pus.” 

In ad­di­tion to re­mem­ber­ing to lock their ve­hi­cle doors, an­other piece of ad­vice stu­dents have been given is to park in ar­eas that are lighted and that have cam­eras. How­ever, many park­ing spots on cam­pus sit in dark­ness, and find­ing a lighted space can be dif­fi­cult. Ac­cord­ing to Neel, cam­eras, and light­ing only help so much. 

“Cam­eras and light­ing help some, but if we were to map out the places where stuff has been stolen, some of it hap­pens lit­er­ally right un­der lamp­posts,” Neel said. “For the peo­ple who are do­ing these kinds of thefts, it’s re­ally just about what they can get re­ally fast with a quick op­por­tu­nity.”

Ac­cord­ing to Cam­pus Safety in­for­ma­tion, there is­n’t a short­age of park­ing spots on cam­pus, but the ones by the res­i­den­tial build­ings can fill up quickly, which leaves stu­dents with fewer op­tions than they would like. There are a to­tal of 1,120 park­ing spots on cam­pus. Some of the des­ig­na­tions for those spots in­clude 160 that are re­served for staff park­ing, 290 re­served for res­i­dent park­ing and 540 des­ig­nated for gen­eral park­ing. Gen­eral park­ing, where com­muters are al­lowed to park, in­cludes the big lot be­tween Suf­fi­cient Grounds and the Wiekamp Ath­letic Gym, the park­ing lot by the soc­cer field, and about 2/​3rds of the lot by Ever­est-Rohrer Chapel. Af­ter 5 p.m., com­muters are al­lowed to park in des­ig­nated staff park­ing ar­eas. 

“We en­cour­age stu­dents, if they are get­ting back late and the lots are full and you have to park some­where else, give us a call and we will meet you and give you a safe ride back to the dorms,” Neel said.

Neel said that his biggest piece of ad­vice to stu­dents when it comes to gen­eral safety is sit­u­a­tional aware­ness. 

“Sit­u­a­tional aware­ness is be­ing aware of the world around you,” Neel said. “It is re­ally easy to pop your ear­buds in and look at your phone when you are run­ning from place to place, but then when you do that, you’re not only not watch­ing what’s go­ing on, but with your ear­buds in also, you can’t even hear what is go­ing on . . . the aware­ness can also lead to just be­ing able to be aware of some­thing weird that is go­ing on that you can re­port. Even if it is no big deal, we are still glad to check it out. Never be afraid to call cam­pus safety.” 

If you need to reach cam­pus safety for any rea­son, you can call the Cam­pus Safety main­line at (574) 807-7500. Or you can call or text the Cam­pus Safety cell phone at (574) 292-8100.