Campus Newspaper Staff Take Stands on Campus Safety

Following the recent sexual assault of a student, the staff of Trinity College’s newspaper, The Tripod, released a statement calling for the university administration to step up its safety policies and provide students with better, more comprehensive safety on campus. The Tripod staff collected and printed 742 signatures from students who said they were concerned about the current status of safety on campus and even proposed solutions for safety on campus, including relieving the Office of Campus Safety of its transportation duties, increasing the budget for the Campus Safety Department and holding individual Campus Safety Officers accountable for their interactions with students on campus. At nearby University of Connecticut, the campus paper The Daily Campus featured an editorial written by student editor Melissa Bruen who was recently sexually assaulted on campus. Her first-hand account of the sexual attack on campus, as a crowd of onlookers watched, provides a chilling look into the growing need for comprehensive safety programs on campus. Melissa says she wrote the account to raise awareness among students, and to urge students to take action when others are in peril.