The school social scene for girls first semester freshman year are to sit in your room, because even the common rooms have students living in them or you go to off campus parties. You are banned from any fraternity party because you will be black balled before January when you rush. Just last week, I was awoken again with a campus notification that there was an assault on a female student by two men with a knife ON CAMPUS! This was not the first notification, but it was the first this year that actually occurred within the campus grounds. I immediately called campus housing because my daughter lives on one corner if its huge campus, but goes out on the weekends with friends at the other furthest corner. I was concerned because she was either coming home alone or crashing at her friends dorm when her friends roommate was away. This roommate is transferring out of IUB at semester, so I asked if my daughter can move in there so she would be safer coming home at 2 in the morning. I was told that under any circumstances YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE YOUR DORM ASSIGNMENT. They offered me the option of her calling the IU police to pick her up from her party to take her home (because the campus bus does not go near all of the off campus parties). Side note for anyone who might comment on the transportation options: A year ago, friends put their drunk friend into a cab at an IU bar thinking that was the safe thing to do…she never made it home and was found murdered. So as we all know, safety is in numbers. So, I asked her why would you think any underage student would call the police? They were giving me unrealistic solutions. The conversation became heated because of the shear ignorance of what is going on at that campus and their intent to follow their new rule as opposed to looking at each situation individually. The conversation ended with the person from housing explaining to me that my daughter was breaking rules and she could be written up for staying at someone else’s dorm room. Today my daughter was informed that she can no longer stay anywhere else but her own room. So, they figured out who she was and followed through with enforcing that rule, even though it may bring her into more unsafe situations. My advice : look into the crime at this school (and I know its everywhere), and look at specifics, such as you cannot change your roommate, what they will be doing on the weekends and where/how they will get home.
You are not over dramatizing this. Sad to say. Two students have died already this semester. Students go missing, are found murdered. They still don’t know what happened to one of them named Lauren Spierer. Very sad. It is a beautiful town and campus but there is something very wrong. Rapes occur frequently, one frat house was just shut down for filmed sex acts activities with a stripper.
Part of the problem is the party atmosphere. Every weekend there are crowds of drunk kids walking the streets. It’s not uncommon to see them throwing up. If I were you, I would encourage your daughter to stay in at 2 in the morning. Maybe just go out once a week for a few hours and study the rest of the time. I know I sound like a dinosaur. You sent her there study not party. Read the book “Paying to Party” it’s about IU. Other college towns are not this party crazy. I know having lived there and others.
Here’s the link to the safety escort service available at IU:
https://safety.indiana.edu/
It runs until 1:45 am, and would give your daughter a verified person to make sure she gets back to her dorm safely.
Another alert last night. Woman assaulted at gun point.
I know this doesn’t really help. But if it were my daughter I would beg her to not go out after dark alone. Even if that meant that she had to stay in her dorm room by herself on the weekends. Maybe her friends could come to her side of the campus instead. Also I would have her try to make some friends in her current dorm that she is in. That way she wouldn’t have to go all the way across campus to do things.
Sounds like the similar UVa situation with Jesse Mathews. Not really the fault of the school. Criminals find easy targets and schools have 1000s of them to rob and worse. Happens at most large schools today…
Oh exit99, how scary and heartbreaking that your D is not only not having the experience that she wanted but is actually not safe. I am sure you have already thought to arm her with pepper spray. Is there a volunteer campus escort service that she could call instead of the police?
I am certainly not trying to diminish or downplay the experience of either of these victims, or the concern of a parent such as @exit99, but we should take a look at all the facts out before we jump to any conclusions about IU being any more dangerous than other schools.
In the Friday evening assault that is mentioned in the OP, the young woman was walking though a rather unlit portion of Dunn Woods, alone, at 1:30 in the morning. In the incident last night, someone knocked on a woman’s door at 3:00 AM and she opened it.
I would say in either case the victim did not use the best judgement. It’s terrible that these things happen, but they are dangers that exist on every campus and are not unique to IU. Unfortunately, the world is a dangerous place and you can never be guaranteed of protecting yourself from it, but a little vigilance and common sense can go a long way.
First, it may be snarky…but please learn how to spell judgment.
Second, what advice would you give to the young woman murdered inside her home?
http://www.news-sentinel.com/news/local/crime/Woman-sexually-assaulted-at-gunpoint-near-IU-campus
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/u-s-world/female-iu-student-sexually-assaulted-at-gunpoint
Yes, you’re right. The victim wasn’t an IU student. However, right now it’s not clear the assailant knew that.
IU: ~40000 students. Number of on campus forcible sexual assaults in 2012: 27, in 2013: 15 (42 over 2 years)
Purdue: ~39000 students. Number of on-campus forcible sexual assaults in 2012: 2, in 2013: 5 (7 over 2 years)
The dangers are not equivalent even on two similarly sized campuses in two similarly sized metro areas in the same [expletive] state.
Source: http://ope.ed.gov/security/
(Should one argue that some institutions under-report I shall request data indicating this is so.)
Our DD found this site while researching colleges and removed more than one school from her list because of it.
Candidly, the number of murders in Bloomington is not acceptable. Walking between dorms should not be a capital crime; jogging should not be a capital crime; and partying until drunk, however ill advised, should not carry a death penalty.
As I recall, back when we were looking all around, the crime rate at some highly regarded universities was weirdly variable. For example, Harvard was similar to IU in per 100,000 with about 7 times the number of forcible sexual assaults as Boston U and at least double that of the adjacent MIT.
@exit99 - after reading the OP I have to ask why you are not suggesting to your daughter that she consider a transfer. If what you report is accurate, it seems the benefits the university may offer are not outweighing the risks associated with the downsides. Safety is a serious consideration especially for women. You are clearly not comfortable with the environment that your daughter is living in, and you should not ignore your instincts. There are plenty of other colleges that are comparable to IU - why take a chance?
First off, my apologies if I offended anyone here.
I figured I might, but reluctantly went ahead with my post anyway. I debated leaving well enough alone and not posting anymore in this thread, but I didn’t want to be accused of an internet hit and run so, well, at the risk of upsetting people further, here goes …
- Yes, that was snarky
- Regarding your second point, neither of those links you posted refer to a murder (I’m not saying one didn’t happen, I don’t know - just referring to what you posted). Both links refer to the incident from last night, and my advice would be the same that I gave my daughters as I send them off to college: don’t open your door if someone knocks at 3AM, simply call the police immediately.
- I never said anything about whether either victim was a student or not and I don’t think it matters. In my opinion, whether the victims were students or not, the perpetrators deserve more punishment than I can comfortably express in a public forum.
@50N40W
I think you may have inadvertently ended up using extreme samples for your comparison. Using the site you linked to, for lack of a better methodology I looked up all Big Ten schools based on the two you selected. Here’s the forcible sexual assaults for the same time period you used:
Purdue 7
Nebraska 7
Northwestern 9
UIUC 22
Minnesota 22
Iowa 24
Maryland 28
Rutgers 37
UW 44
OSU 45
IU 47
MSU 47
UM 54
PSU 73
Also, as a point of note, since you focused on the state of Indiana, sexual assaults were reported opening week of the current semester at IU, Purdue, Ball State, and Notre Dame. All of them. And to follow up on your comment, I don’t think the number of murders on ANY campus is acceptable.
And yes, by all accounts, sexual assaults (possibly even the majority) on college campuses are under-reported:
https://uwcampusassaults.■■■■■■■■■■■■■
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/university-of-kentucky-survey-finds-most-sexual-assault-cases-on-campus-go-unreported_55e4b335e4b0c818f618cc37
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/four-five-acts-campus-sexual-assault-go-unreported-police/
Deciding exactly to what degree each college under-reports is something well beyond my ability for number crunching. And actually, I don’t even know if anyone has gathered information that specific. And it’s not just the victims, but might actually be that schools are turning a blind eye:
http://www.vocativ.com/usa/education-usa/sexual-assault-on-college-campuses/
Which all brings me to my points that I tried, but obviously failed, to convey in my first post (this is not intended directly for any of you): I am NOT downplaying anything going on at IU or trying to defend anything going on there. Is IU an extreme case? Possibly. But data from the website provided by @50N40W suggests that it might not be uncommonly so. Which is a very sad statement.
The cold hard truth is that, unfortunately, IU is not that much different than most campuses. That doesn’t mean it’s OK. None of them are - the entire culture is a mess. At any college campus, getting drunk can lead to date rape and walking alone at night can lead to assault. I’m just afraid that parents/students might let their guard down if they think they’ve made a safe choice, and keeping their guard up is the only things potential victims have control over - not putting themselves in high risk situations.
My apologies again for any offense I’ve caused.
That may not be unique to college campuses.
It may also be the case that many college students grew up in low crime environments, since college attendance is skewed toward those from higher income backgrounds, so that they do not have any particular concern with avoiding and preventing crime (i.e. their guard was never up). When I went to college, many students were extremely careless about leaving doors and property unattended and unlocked, to the point that thefts were extremely common. Obviously, lack of crime awareness can also extend to violent crimes like assault, robbery, and rape.
One further clarification regarding something I typed that I realized could be taken rather poorly:
Regarding the victim who was assaulted at gunpoint at 3AM in her apartment, please don’t think I meant I would would have told her after the incident that she shouldn’t have opened her door. That would have been my advice to anyone as a preventative measure and general rule. If an incident occurs there is obviously only support and not an I-told-you-so.
@exit99 I am sorry to hear this. It must be scary for you. My daughter is attending school at an urban campus. She understands not to walk by herself after dark, even when walking to her dorm from the library. Even if I never drilled that into her, the school has repeatedly made this clear to the female students. This is why schools provide a safety escort service - even schools in areas that feel safe have this. If she needs to cross campus late at night, perhaps a group of her friends can walk with her.
I think we can all agree that crime is not exclusive to IUB. The crime alerts that I receive as a parent are released when there is imminent danger to the students of IUB. For instance, there was a murder-suicide on campus, but we were not alerted because there was no danger to other students. We were alerted to the rape this week because it occurred in an off campus area where students live, and the criminal had a semi automatic handgun.
I have had time to really think about our situation and the school’s current situation. This is my lesson/take-away:
I did not put safety at the top of the list of things to research at each University. Now, any school can say they have a cooperative city police and an active on campus police department. But, as a parent, I did not look forward to where and what will my daughter be doing on the weekends. And, how will this affect her safety, especially on a campus that does have a history of serious crimes. I feel like parents are not asking the ‘what ifs’ and hard questions. I remember being at the housing presentation at admit student day, and the questions were: can they bring a fridge? Where will they park? etc. No one asked what their policy and rules were, and they didn’t offer them either.
I have been told twice that if my daughter feels unsafe she should call the police or the campus police. I am sure the girl who was stabbed last week did not feel unsafe until she was stabbed. My point is that IUB is very compartmentalized in their efforts to keep these students safe. The housing department is passing the buck on safety to the campus police. The housing department still believes I want my daughter to be in a dorm with all of her friends so she can be social, instead of my truth which is for safety. After speaking to housing on two occasions, I feel like IUB is a big school that acts like a big school. School goals: If you or your child wants a big school, find the one that is big but manages to be small. And, I admit I ignored this during the visits we made to the school. When I look back, IUB had my least favorite presentation of all the schools we visited. I thought they just needed to hire a pr person to fine tune, however, now I think that the presentation was a good representation of how they manage the school and their students.
[QUOTE=""]
YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE YOUR DORM ASSIGNMENT
[/QUOTE]
I would follow-up on this. I know someone who switched dorms a couple of weeks ago, so it can happen.
There is a false sense of safety in such a beautiful and bucolic country environment. Because of this, safety is not taken as seriously by students or officials. The community is wonderful. They all come together and look for the missing students. Sadly, one is still missing. The party scene is huge. After living there for about ten years, I’ve seen enough and will not send my daughters there. The party scene is that bad. It’s a party party party town.
^^^ I think there’s probably a lot of truth to @researchperson 's comment that the country environment can create a false sense of security. We’ve been to IUB twice, but neither visit involved a weekend night.
Spouse and I are both from the metro NYC area so we have a high level of natural vigilance, and I think we’ve imparted it to our daughter. I too attended a very large school with a party reputation, and then lived off campus in the same town. We had a safety escort service even then, and I never had a problem.
We met with a senior administrator at DePaul during one of our visits there. The Lincoln Park area of Chicago has had some trouble with crimes against DePaul students (and others) by outsiders coming into the area on weekends. His position, which I do not disagree with at all, is that common sense and vigilance should prevail. You can’t rely on anyone else to keep you safe. If students have a “buddy system” and are walking with one or two companions on well-lit streets at 10 p.m., are sober enough to be aware of their surroundings, and have their transportation figured out, that’s very different from a lone man or woman stumbling around intoxicated at 1:30 a.m. Yes, odds are higher that the latter person might get robbed or injured.
Temple is really sensitized to this as well, since their surrounding neighborhood is questionable to say the least. They have their entire campus so brightly lit at night that it shows up in aerial photos almost brighter than the airport. Administration attitudes … well, we’ve only been there once and didn’t have a chance to visit with the housing department, so it’s hard to say. But definitely something to watch for.
I do feel a little disturbed, since IUB is a candidate for our D, if it’s true that the administration is not receptive to parent concerns and there’s a disconnect between housing and police. When you have that many dorms spread over that large an area, housing and the police have to work hand in hand.
Reality check- your kids need to learn how to stay safe whether they are in a rural, urban, or suburban area. Reality check- a kid who drinks too much (whether male or female) is putting him/herself at risk for a whole host of bad outcomes. Reality check- your kid can be stone cold sober and would never admit a stranger into his or her dorm room, but getting into a car for a ride home with someone who has been drinking is a dumb and unsafe thing to do. Whether you are the parent of a young man being accused of rape- and he was too drunk to remember if the woman consented- or the parents of the young woman who was raped- and she was too drunk to remember how she got to his room- your kids often engage in a wide range of unsafe activities.
Etc. It is pointless (IMHO) to talk about what colleges can and should be doing to keep kids safer unless parents and kids accept (and internalize) that kids often and willingly put themselves at risk by being dumb or ignorant or unaware. My kids went to urban colleges (some of which are often described on CC as being “Too Ghetto” or some variant thereof) but the urban colleges seem to take safety MUCH more seriously than the rural or suburban colleges.