Campus safety shouldn’t be taken lightly

As part of campus safety at the University of South Dakota, there are four emergency blue lights placed around campus. While helpful in certain situations, there are two questions about the safety devices that come to attention: where are the lights located, and is four enough?

The blue lights are meant for emergency situations on campus. If a student needs to contact the police for any reason, such as being in danger, the blue light alerts on-campus police and they report to the scene as soon as possible. The posts are illuminated with blue and they have a red button to alert the authorities.

According to the USD myU Portal, the lights are located at the southeast concourse entrance of the DakotaDome, the main entrance of Julian Hall, the south entrance of Norton Hall and the north main entrance of Richardson and Olson Hall.

Having the locations posted on a website is one thing, but making students aware of their locations is another thing entirely. It is a common joke among students to spot these “rare” lights, but we must also see the seriousness of the situation — a student may not know where to go if he/she is getting attacked on campus.

While our campus may be small and its location is in a rather small town, violence can happen anywhere, which is why being aware of possible situations and preparing for them ahead of time is essential.

Searching on the myU Portal, one has to go through many steps just to find the locations and directions on how to use them. This poses a concern for students because education and awareness about the lights is not as efficient as it could be.

Last spring, the Student Government Association took members of The Volante, as well as others in student media, on a tour of where additional lights could possibly be placed to better light campus at night. Since then, there haven’t been any additional lighting systems installed.

This brings up the question, is student safety important on campus? It seems both SGA and the university promote student safety on campus, yet there are more dark walkways than lighted areas.

Although most have cell phones, a common concern is that one may not have time to dial 911, and the emergency blue lights are just another option available to those in a time of danger, because it can be quicker to push a button rather than key in 911.

The location of the existing emergency blue lights is also worth assessing. Although some are placed near residence halls, there are not systems near all the dorms — a high traffic area among students. If one were in danger near Coyote Village or the Fine Arts building, they would have to run to North Complex or the DakotaDome just to start the process of alerting the police.

While emergency blue lights aren’t necessarily the greatest things to see around any college campus, on the other side of the coin, it’s nice knowing the university is taking full precautions against any threat of danger that may come to its students. Emergency blue lights aren’t an eyesore and shouldn’t reflect poorly on a university’s image. Rather, they’re an investment in students’ safety.