<p>Hi all. My niece is heading off to Vassar this fall and her mom sent me this link, and now I know why. I've been a campus police officer at JHU for almost 12 years. I am so pleased to see such an intelligent thread on this issue, especially about my beloved Hopkins. Please feel free to email me about JHU security issues. I am now part of the implementation team for the new security camera system being installed. I have also been apart of the security presentations to both students/families and staff. I can't promise how often I can check this board, but will try to keep up as much as possible. Although I am not a parent, if it helps, I am a night student at JHU also. Thanks and keep up the great discussion! Sgt. Caroline Bennett JHU Campus Police.</p>
<p>I guess I am guilty of turning this into the Paranoid Parents Thread , but two items that keep cropping up on NPR these days are:</p>
<p>1) likelihood (soon) of a worldwide flu pandemic (avian or otherwise)</p>
<p>2) Intentions of Al Qaeda and Co. to attack with bio-, nuclear, or radiological weapons.</p>
<p>Makes me think longingly of rural campuses away from major metropolises.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some CA colleges have items on their websites concerning "what to do in case of earthquake", while some in Indiana have lists of tornado precautions on campus.</p>
<p>I guess it's a question of the parents' comfort level with types of dangers and statistics--what place you could bear to have your child at (momrath, no pun intended) while you are miles and miles away.</p>
<p>P.S. I also don't understand how "diversity" and Pell grants got on to this thread. I see no reason to conclude that more diversity on campus would mean more "danger". My original post was not about student populations but locations of campuses vs. crime statistics.</p>
<p>I'm originally from New York, and my wife is from Washington, DC. The way we look at it, virtually everywhere we send the kids is safer than where we grew up. Probably a mistake, as my older one is a "rural" kid, much happier in the woods (where she knows every poisonous berry, leaf, snake, and knows how to keep herself "safe") than on a city street. But it has made it harder for my wife and I to get around this issue. Almost all the cities are much safer today than when we were growing up. We kind of shrugged when we went on a Yale tour, and every 90 seconds or so the tour guide felt it necessary to point out the location of the "blue phones", and to emphasize the locked gates. I'm sure they were doing this for the benefit of (mostly) suburban parents, but for us it seemed very strange. I would have wanted to know (and indeed asked) about the relationships Yale was developing with the neighborhood, rather than the efforts they were making to keep the neighborhood out. But the tour guide was flustered, and I didn't push it.</p>
<p>I did live in Hyde Park for 3 years. I'll bet it is much safer now than it was 30 years ago. Then it was almost like being in the "green zone", with "buffer zones" on three sides, and the lake on the fourth. Lots of "stuff" happened every year, but none to me.</p>
<p>Hopcop,thanks for joining this discussion, and welcome. My husband was a grad student at JHU, and I worked there and took some courses there at the then Evening College. We love Baltimore still, have friends there and visit every year. I am curious about the Charles Village area of Baltimore where many Hopkins students find cheap housing after sophomore year since the school cannot accomodate housing for everyone after that. The two murders are frightening, to say the least, but of more concern are the other crimes that occur during the year in that area, mainly the break-ins and thefts. I know when we lived there, confrontational crime was rare but a lot of people got there apartments ransacked in that student ghetto area. I never felt that it was as much of an issue when I lived in the student ghetto of Oakland in Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>I never felt a bit concerned even at night on Homewood campus, so I don't know if additional security is even warrented. It is the lack of housing which Hopkins said they would address 30 years ago, and they really have not done enough. Though they have added dorm units so sophomores can stay on campus as well as freshmen, I hear that is at the expense of the upperclass lottery since Hopkins has since my day added many more undergraduates per class. There are about 1000 more undergrads than in my day, so those housing units did not alleviate the problem as much as you would think. Also what is the availability of safe, affordable housing off campus, particularly outside of the Charles Village area and nearer to the school. My old apartment building has been turned into a Doubletree Hotel, last I visited!!! It is off the University Parkway part of the campus which is much nicer and safer than the areas south of 20th and east of St Paul streets.Again, thanks for posting.</p>
<p>Jami</p>
<p>Is it possible that the more blue phones there are, the more unsafe the campus is?</p>
<p>Re: Hyde Park. I do think it is safer than it was 30 years ago when I was in law school there. I HATED counting back and discovering it was 30 years, by the way. The thing I remembered was that the campus was lit up so much at night- for safety-that it seemed like daytime. That was not a good feeling.</p>
<p>A recent poster asked, "Is it possible that the more blue phones there are, the more unsafe the campus is?"</p>
<p>No, I don't think so--simply a matter of attitude; Williams, for example, has a lot of blue phones and is clearly not considered a dangerous campus.</p>
<p>Every tour we went on featured blue phones (I think - actually I don't remember if Stanford featured them). But such a place as Lafayette College in Easton Pa. had them as well, as I recall. I thought they were now just a fixture on every campus everywhere.</p>
<p>I think I am in the vast minority, but I find this thread a little disconcerting. True, I am a city girl - Washington, DC born and bred, lived in Manhattan, SF,Oakland... who doesn't currently live in a city, but would happily return.</p>
<p>I just don't think we can control these things. And, add to this parents on other threads who want to make sure DD/DS is not going to be somewhere where it's "too cold" etc. These types of "protective" criteria just don't enter my equation for my S, and if they did, I would - as Archie Bunker used to say - "stifle myself."</p>
<p>Just a counterpoint to what maybe is the prevailing opinion.</p>
<p>The funny thing about my DD's favorite schools is that almost all of them are near the central city. That is what she loved about them. Big, dirty, noisy city streets with lots of people. When we visited nice serene campuses with open spaces and lovely landscaping she continually said it reminded her of a summer camp and that it just didn't seem like an environment in which to study.</p>
<p>pyewacket; LOL I had a good laugh about your diversity and Pell grant comment ! I've been having fun on that thread all day! You know, you should open a new thread about the flu and terrorism . I'm sure plenty of us could add to those topics!
Hey, did anyone see the film 'Dirty War'?</p>
<p>Maybe it's a rural thing, but I've never heard of blue phones, except for the baby-blue Princess line alternative to the standard black telephone back in the 60s. What are they?</p>
<p>Campus safety phones located on poles beneath blue lights.</p>
<p>As an aside: one of the problems that we ran into when I was in the government was that students with limited vision couldn't locate the blue light phones. Colleges that were sensitive to this issue, and wanted to be in compliance with the law, used a blue light phone system that gave off an an audible buzz of some sort so students could hear where the emergency phones were when they couldn't see them.</p>
<p>Jamimom - thanks for the welcoming! Hopkins has definately increased the student population in my 11 almost 12 years now. When I started there, the general concensus among the students was that they couldn't wait until their Jr year so that they could move out of university housing. Times have changed. JHU is taking steps to improve the amount of undergrad housing. The Charles Commons buildings are under construction and are due to come "on line" in '06 (I believe). This should add in the area of 500 beds, plus it will house the banking institutions, the bookstore, dining and other venues so that students won't have to travel far. These buildings will be located in the unit block of E. 33rd (where Ivy Hall and the Homewood Garage use to be). There are also plans to build another large dorm on the freshman quad soon, but I think that they are still looking at exactly where....possibly on the current baseball field. The off-campus area that most of our students live in, east side of campus from University Parkway on the north to 27th St. on the south, and east to Guilford Ave., is not what I would call college ghetto. It is a pretty decent mix of row homes (town homes for those not in Baltimore) and apartment buildings both privately owned and university owned, with more private housing and commercial space on the way. This is what people somewhat incorrectly tend to call Charles Village (it actually incorporates a couple of neighborhoods). It is patroled 24/7 by JHU police and our security people from Silver Star Security (as is University Parkway from 39th to 33rd). The Charles Village Benifits District also has security patrols, as does Union Memorial Hospital and the Roland Park neighborhood association. The Northern District city officers are patroling all these areas, of course. The University has also hired uniformed off-duty city police to patrol the heaviest student traveled areas to our east. As far as availability of housing on University Parkway, the stretch from 39th to 33rd is mostly made up of rental options. The Hopkins House apartments, the Broadview, and the Carlisle are large private apartment houses that are popular among students. I honestly don't know the rental rates at these places, but since they are heavily used by students it must be in an acceptable range (whatever that is). Many students go for splitting rent on a row home among 3+ tenants. The landlords, especially along University Parkway, have been taking steps to make their properties much more secure (better doors and windows mainly). Any student is welcome to contact us and we can put them in touch with a city community relations officer who can come out free of charge and do a security evaluation on a residence. Of course, any place you live in is only as safe as the least safety minded person who lives in it. If they choose not to lock doors and windows, or don't take advantage of a properly installed security system, then their odds of having a bad experience increases. The "trick" to keeping yourself and your property safe is to make it less tempting to the bad guy than the person next to you does. I know that sounds harsh, but it is true. Crime occurs because opportunity and desire are present. You might not be able to do anything about a criminal's desire to commit an act, but you can take most opportunities away. The University is trying to do that with our patrols, the addition of controled university owned housing and a pretty incredible camera system that is currently being installed. Sorry I went on and on. I certainly hope that I answered your questions. I can provide some websites related to all this, but I suggest anyone interested in JHU take a look at the jhu.edu website, especially the security and housing sites.
Take care - Sgt. CFB</p>
<p>Pyewacket and all, actually probably the most realistic possibility of disaster that our kids will face is that of a dorm fire. We all can probably remember reading and hearing about one. Along with the personal safety/theft issues, we are covering basic fire safety including doing without some of those neat appliances that would make dorm life easier.</p>
<p>I am worried about the flu epidemic over the next few years, I'm afraid it is more a matter of time, and how prepared we can be - a virus can make Osama and Co look like amateurs.</p>
<p>I go to GW, so I feel relatively qualified to comment on GW's safety. GW is in Foggy Bottom, arguably the safest and most affluent areas of DC. Don't get me wrong, DC has a very high crime rate and needs to improve in many areas, but GW does a lot to keep it's students safe. In addition to The MPD(Metro Police Dep.), GW has its own University police departement. In the evenings, GW operates a van shuttle service that will pick up and drop students off for free anywhere within 3 blocks of campus. A shuttle bus also runs throughout the day and night. In all the freshman dorms there are cameras EVERYWHERE and security guards are paranoid about people signing in to go upstairs. To even take an elevator in a dorm or to get in most places on campus, you need to swipe an ID card. With all this security, you must also take into account that GW's campus is within 2 blocks of the white house and several important government buildings are located on campus(World Bank, Mexican Embassy, etc.). Let's just say that security is really tight at GW. If you read most review books from GW students, you will find that we have our share of problems with the administration, but not with crime. As long as students are cautious, walk in packs at night(especially women), stay in lit areas, and don't venture off campus too much, they should be okay. I'm not saying that GW is crime-free like Dartmouth, but it's not what people expect or generalize it as.</p>
<p>About the sirens, I must admit that GW is really noisy. The dorm I am sitting in now as I type this message is experiencing a large amount of noise from the city. It's subject to loud inaugural parades, honking vehicles, pedestrians, motorcades, and The GW University hospital is a short walk away(probably explains for the sirens). It is loud, but I like the bustling and busy atmosphere of GW.</p>
<p>Since I live in a country that is vulnernable to both Avian Flu and terrorism (not to mention earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions), I must say that the thought of safe, isolated Williamstown was very appealing to me. (One of the reasons that the Clark collection ended up there was coldwar paranoia.) Crime aversion wasn't the reason that our son ended up at Williams, but since he's there the safety factor has been comforting. So, what do I see on CNN? A terrorist cell uncovered in nearby Albany, for heavenssake! Safety is indeed relative and random.</p>
<p>Probably have to worry about terrorist art thieves, too! ;)</p>
<p>As a long-time DC area resident, I have to agree with GWColonial about safety around the GW campus. The local knock on GW is that it's a real estate firm masquerading as a university.</p>