Campus safety, surrounding area

<p>How safe is the area around Vandy? Is there a lot of interaction between school/ Nashville, or is campus an island?</p>

<p>Island, yes. Safe, yes.</p>

<p>My daughter reports that she feels safe on Vanderbilt’s campus but she says she stays alert as she would in any city at night. There are vans to drive the students around campus at night. The campus IS bordered by 2 major streets and is not far from the downtown area of a large city but we live near a small college town and a girl was murdered in her off campus apt. last month so being in a small town is not automatically safer.</p>

<p>Vandy is in a safe nice part of Nashville.
Vandy is part island or bubble but there is good interaction of students in the city for work, play and community service.</p>

<p>I will say that VUPD (Police Dept) is great. They have a very strong presence on campus and provide a sense of security. Basically anywhere you go you’ll see the blue light emergency phones. You can even call and request a walking escort if you need, but I’ve never known anyone to do that/have never felt the need to myself.</p>

<p>Whenever I step off campus at night, I suddenly feel a little less safe. Lots of homeless, sketchy crowds, etc. If I’m in a group I am never worried.</p>

<p>It’s in the middle of the large city, so you have the same issues as you would in any other. South of West End/Broadway is pretty yuppie so it’s generally safe, but north of West End/Broadway, it’s generally pretty sketchy, except right on Elliston and Church St.</p>

<p>Vanderbilt is a bubble, but that’s mostly a function of the difficult parking situation. Nashville’s public transportation system and still rather underdeveloped.</p>

<p>My daughter feels safe on campus, but uses the campus police if she takes her car somewhere at night. They are great, and actually have their station in her parking lot. As stated above, parking on campus is horrible, so it’s a LONG walk back to the dorm for her. On campus she feels pretty safe. I know once the phones were messed up, and security wouldn’t let me up to her room even though her floor mate vouched for me!</p>

<p>The campus is safe but be smart and realize your still in a downtown low income area. You’d be surprised at how often there are vandy girls running solo with tight workout clothes when its dark outside. So if you don’t do stupid stuff like that to draw attention to yourself while your alone than you should be fine.</p>

<p>As for interaction between other schools, not really. Belmont is fairly close to us but there isn’t a lot of interaction going on there. Belmont tends to have the more “hipster” crowd of kids and I think they view us as snobs who think we’re better than them (my experiences). I’m sure you could make friends from other schools but Vanderbilt isn’t doing anything special to foster inter-college mingling to my knowledge.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t really consider the immediate Vanderbilt area low income…or “downtown” for that matter.</p>

<p>Are there a lot of students out late at night? How well lit is the campus at night?</p>

<p>Yes, many students are out late, late at night, especially on the weekends. The campus is well-lit, and the Vandy Vans operate from early evening until well into the morning to take students around campus.</p>