A recent survey showed that a majority of undergraduate students are unaware of or uncomfortable using the safety services available to them on campus, according to Lieutenant David Honan, operations manager of the Cornell University Police Department.

Of the nearly 1500 students who responded to the survey, 41 percent said that they felt unsafe walking home at night. Although 83 percent said that they were aware of the Blue Light escort service, a CUPD safety program that provides students with on-call body guards to walk them home in the event that they need help or feel unsafe, only 3 percent had utilized this service in the past, said Natalie Raps ’12, the arts and sciences representative for the Student Assembly and the chair of the S.A. Women’s Issues Committee. The committee met with representatives from the CUPD last Wednesday to discuss the findings of the survey.

In the wake of several safety-related incidents on campus, including the stabbing of Marc Jackson ’10, the “forcible touching” of a woman in Collegetown, and various burglaries, the CUPD collaborated with the WIC to figure out how they could better inform students about the Blue Light services, which include the 86 Blue Light phones situated across campus, the escort service available seven days a week and the Blue Light bus service that is free to all Cornell students with valid identification, Honan said.

The increase in crimes on campus has led many students to feel uneasy about walking home alone from the libraries after a late night of studying and some are taking their own safety precautions. Stacey Charron ’11 said she has started carrying pepper spray in her bag in case of an emergency.

“I walk alone at night all the time. I have an off-campus job, so I have to park my car and walk back in the dark,” Charron said, “and with every notification I get of a new crime that’s happened I feel more insecure of my surroundings.”

It is in these circumstances that the CUPD hopes students will utilize the Blue Light services. When a student calls the escort service’s phone number, a team of specially trained CUPD auxiliary members is dispatched to the student’s location and will accompany them to a bus stop or back to their home or dorm. It usually takes the team six or seven minutes to arrive and all escorts wear a CUPD polo or jacket and carry a picture ID, Honan said.

In 2007 and 2008, the CUPD averaged one to two requests for the escort service per week, Honan said, and the survey conducted by the WIC shows that the reason for this may be the large misconceptions about how the service works, according to Raps.

“A lot of students think it’s just a Cornell police officer waiting for them to call and they don’t really want to walk home with a cop after they’ve just been at a party,” Raps said. “But it’s not just police escorts. It’s also trained students, staff and members of the community”.

According to the survey, 35 percent of students said they would be uncomfortable having a police escort walk them home and 50 percent said they might be more comfortable with a student escort. Because of this information, the WIC will be working to create an advertising campaign that will increase student awareness and dispel false impressions about the Blue Light services, Raps said.

“The [Blue Light escort] service is underutilized, and with all these crimes happening around campus, safety cannot be put on the back burner anymore,” Raps said.

In addition to the campaign, the CUPD announced last Wednesday that they would be conducting joint patrols with the Ithaca Police Department in areas where serious crimes have been reported, as well as deploying additional auxiliary teams to staff the escort service in order to give students more protection, Honan said.

With this increase in escort staffing, the CUPD plans on having a team available every night around Olin library — whether it’s in Libe café or outside on the benches — so that students can just walk up and ask to be accompanied home without having to make a phone call, Raps said.

Other local campuses have been implementing new services to offer students extra protection. For example, last year Tompkins Cortland Community College turned its public safety office into an actual law enforcement agency and installed security offices inside on-campus dorms, according to Beau Saul ’97, director of public safety at TC3.

“I’m sure some of the students feel like their lifestyles might be a little crammed,” Saul said. “But the feedback we’ve gotten is that folks appreciate our presence.”

Despite the success of TC3’s program thus far, Saul said that a program like this might not be so easy to implement at Cornell due to the differences in size and location, with TC3 being much smaller, situated in a more rural area and made up of a more diverse student body.

“I’m very fond of Ezra’s ‘any [person], any [study]’ idea, and TC3 is definitely an ‘any person’ type of school since we’re an open enrollment institution,” Saul said. “Therefore, we have other unique challenges that Cornell might not.”

The WIC and CUPD will continue to meet and discuss new ways to increase awareness and keep students safe, such as a potential shuttle service in the future that would pick up students wherever they are on campus and bring them to a safe place. These ideas, however, are still tentative and require future discussions, Raps said.

The WIC plans to hold several Blue Light services information events in the future, including setting up a table on Ho Plaza and passing out blue lollipops with the number of the escort service on the wrapper, Raps said.

“I want people to stop being afraid, embarrassed, or feel like they’re too cool to call the Blue Light escort service,” Raps said. “Because if you’re safe for just one more night, then it’s worth it.”