Public Safety has one main goal: Keep students, faculty, staff, and visitors safe.
This is what their page on Cabrini’s website claims, but sometimes safety comes at a price.
Thomas Hale, junior graphic design major and Spanish minor, commutes to school and often has to search for a parking spot in the Founder Hall parking lot.
“Last year I did occasionally see public safety workers going around checking cars but there has been multiple occasions where I have seen them either out in a vehicle doing a visual inspection from afar or going car to car looking at the stickers,” Hale said.
Students such as Hale have noticed these stricter enforcements of the parking rules on campus. After a student filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights, Creig Doyle, director of public safety, sent out an e-mail to the campus explaining the strict enforcement of handicapped parking rules.
The speed humps that have added a four-inch jump in seven locations on campus have also caused a stir.
“I think that’s a little bit excessive,” Hale said. “Personally when I went the speed limit or even just a little bit above I always made sure I was aware of pedestrians.”
The speed bumps and parking are not the only changes that public safety has made this year. Desk assistants in the residence halls have been asked by public safety to be extra strict about checking students into the building between the hours of 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. when the assistants are working.
“Let’s say my roommate walks into the building. I know she lives with me but I still have to check her ID,” Ashley Miller, sophomore exercise science major, said. “Even if you can scan [an ID] in [to unlock the door] we still have to check it.”
The stricter enforcement of ID checking has little to do with slowing down students as they head to their rooms and much more to do with ensuring that students are safe.
Miller explained that after a breakup during her freshman year the student she had been with wanted to talk to her after an argument.
“He ended up bringing all of these people with him as his backup and the desk assistants just let those people walk up into my room,” Miller said. “He brought all of these people with him and these people could’ve beat me up.”
While more extensive ID checking and ensuring desk assistants are doing their jobs may seem like a nuisance to some residents, public safety is simply putting in all their efforts to make sure all students are safe.
“You don’t want someone coming into the building that you don’t know and then someone getting like raped or something,” Miller said. “You never know.”
@samjacobspa
