In October 2001, two female residents of Whitney Hall of University residence were sexually assaulted after an intruder broke into numerous rooms in the three-storey residence. In September 2002, a young male entered the second floor of St. Michael’s College residence and attempted to sexually assault a student. The same male also entered the third floor of Victoria residence from the roof of the building.
In July 2003, a woman was assaulted in her bedroom at approximately 5 a.m. in the morning. The suspect entered her home on Huron Avenue in the Bloor and Spadina area through the ground-floor window and fled with her purse and a portable CD player.
These incidents are not everyday occurrences, but campus safety is an important issue, especially at U of T. Located in the downtown core and bordered by areas such as the Annex, Yorkville, Chinatown and Queen’s Park, U of T is a meeting place for partygoers, socialites, academics, students, politicians and drunks. So when it comes to residence safety, U of T has a serious responsibility to provide students with a safe living environment. In the recent and much debated Globe and Mail University Report Card, U of T ranked 30 out of 38 universities in the category of Safety on Campus.
A knee-jerk conclusion students come to is that U of T is not a safe campus to live in. But according to Jana Luker, dean of University College Residence, much of it has to do with students’ perception of the campus, which is often not the reality.
“Honestly, I live [on campus] too and a lot of it is perception and the idea of the evil Toronto city. I’ve read the stats and I know that Toronto is actually not that unsafe comparatively. I come from a small town not far from Toronto, I know that people outside of Toronto think of it that way and it’s worse outside the province. People probably feel exploited by Toronto, the big city and you hear a lot of the crimes come from the city especially the gangs and such…but per capita, it’s not as unsafe as say, Winnipeg.”
Jason Hunter, dean of students at Victoria College, agrees. “A lot of students’ comments on that have to do with their perceived safety of campus being in Toronto…you’re in the middle of downtown Toronto, so you probably feel less safe than you might if you were on campus in the middle of Guelph.” He also adds, “This is the fourth university I’ve worked at and most residences in general have similar safety initiatives. So I think residence safety is fairly standardized across campuses.”
However, both Luker and Hunter admit the report indicates there is room for improvement and do not dismiss the findings. They feel that the issue is not whether the report is valid but that students feel unsafe. “It doesn’t matter what the stats say. If you feel unsafe, that’s way more important. I think it’s important to take a report like that and work with it…if people feel unsafe, we gotta do something about it regardless,” says Luker.
Residences on campus such as University College, Victoria and St. Joseph’s perform regular safety and lighting audits around their areas. The audits involve a careful walkthrough of the college, both during the day and night, to identify areas where potential dangers may lurk. Trees, shrubs and vines are trimmed back and dumpsters are relocated as they often provide hideouts for intruders. Many residences including St. Joseph’s and Innis have 24-hour front desks that are equipped with an emergency buzzer, surveillance cameras and intercom to prevent suspicious persons from entering the building. As well, in light of the assaults from previous years, new latches and security bars are installed in windows on lower floors of the residences to deter random break-ins. In St. Joseph’s women’s residence, all of the old lights were replaced and many new lights, as well as new cameras, were added to all three sides of the building.
One of the most common problems is that students often prop open doors for their friends when they come to visit. At UC, a new alarm system is put in place so that a local alarm will set off when a door is opened for longer than a prescribed time. Victoria now requires its residents to come down and open the door for their visitors. In previous years, visitors simply had to buzz the residents and the door would automatically open. Similarly, the staff at Innis and St. Joseph’s buzz the residents down to the lobby to sign their guests in and require them to sign their guests out upon leaving.
Furthermore, there are safety phones installed in various locations of the campus for emergencies. Victoria, for example, has 13 safety phones installed in their residence area: five above ground and eight in underground garages. However, according to Sister Anne Marie, dean of residence, and Sister Conrad, St. Joseph’s residence has made requests to the police for three call boxes to be installed, but the installation never materialized. Likewise, a request has been made to the Kelly Library to put a gate across an alcove on the west side of the building, but a response has yet to come.
Despite the delays, Sister Conrad points out that safety on campus ultimately depends on the community and the people, not on locks and security gadgets. “When the intrusion happened [at St. Joseph’s], we took very strong measures…and it was the first time that has happened. But in all the security and safety, there is no way we could be 100 per cent safe and there is no way we could prevent any breech of security. Security in the long run comes down to the people involved and by people’s actions…if everybody does their part, I think it’s as safe as you can make it without building yourself into a fortress because that just becomes ridiculous,” says Sister Conrad.
Many resident staff share this view as well. Residences on campus frequently offer information sessions on campus safety and inform all their residents of defense courses, lectures and safety services that are available on campus. The best security system is achieved through education and by being aware. One example is the Safety Awareness Initiatives that take place in October. October is Residence Safety Month at U of T and during the month, campus police and the Community Safety Office, together with residences on campus, offer presentations on safety tips on and off campus for students. Five sessions were scheduled throughout the weeks of October but all were cancelled due to lack of interest. In fact, no students attended any of the five sessions. This certainly raises some eyebrows.
As Sister Conrad reiterates, no matter how many locks there are on the door, “if you decide to come home alone at four in the morning from the library, I’m sorry, you just put yourself at risk and we can’t protect you against that.”
