PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A poll of Temple University students shows that while a majority of them feel safe, that feeling diminishes the farther students live from campus.
Related Jawncast: Temple Student Government President talks about how he and fellow students coped with the past year’s challenges, whether he feels safe on campus, and his hopes for change in the fall.
The email survey by Temple Student Government showed that 81% of students living in university-owned housing felt safe. But a little more than half, 56%, felt safe in private housing just off of the North Philadelphia campus.
69% believed that Temple is attentive to campus security.
Student government’s director of campus safety, Cory Staples, said the survey gave voice to students on edge after the murder of student Sam Collington last fall.
“They really wanted to be heard because of all the things that happened earlier on this year,” Staples told KYW Newsradio. “I think because this came out at the particular date that it did, students were more brutally honest than they have been in the past.”
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The survey found that while students were aware of Temple safety services including walking escorts, few students actually use them. 37% of respondents said they had ever used the university’s FLIGHT shuttle.
90% of the respondents said they pay attention to campus safety alerts, but nearly half think more incidents should be reported, said Jacob Golden, Temple Student Government’s chief external services officer.
“It means the students are seeing things happening that might be potentially dangerous, and then there’s no warning that goes out,” said Golden. “No other students are warned of the potential danger.”
Golden said since Temple doesn’t control private housing, landlords bear responsibility for student safety.
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“It’s about making sure that there’s lights outside the building. It’s about making sure the lock to the front door isn’t the same lock to the rest of the units in the building. It’s making sure that landlords are taking care of their students,” he told KYW Newsradio.
The survey also asked students to rank their feeling of safety as they walk the campus, from a scale of 1 (not safe) to 5 (very safe). They said that walking at night on weekdays was a 2.41, and nighttime weekend days had a safety rating of 2.18. Daytime ratings were much better: 4.07 on weekdays, 3.73 on weekends.
5,313 students responded to the email survey between Jan. 24 and Feb. 6. Staples and Golden said the results of the survey would be shared with campus police.
“I feel like now that they have this data – and there’s no arguing this data because it’s coming directly from students – now that they have this data that they’re able to make actionable change based on it,” Staples said.
The university this year has launched a safety app, formed a violence reduction task force, and commissioned a safety audit by former Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey.
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