Campus Security does a great job making Skyline safe, but when night classes start, their presence is not as strong.

The Board of Trustees held an open campus security forum last October to find out how Administration employees, faculty members and students felt about campus safety across the three campuses in the District. A Skyline professor had even expressed her concern about evening class students walking back to their cars by themselves in dimly-lit parking lots.

The darker lighting during evening classes and with the thick fog our campus regularly gets, we are left with limited vision. Staying aware is key to our own safety and we believe the students do a good job looking after one another. But with the limited vision, students need the school to have a stronger presence of campus security officers during the evening hours.

While cameras are present and cover a majority of the campus, the fog and dim lighting are variables that could potentially jeopardize how much a camera can really capture on campus. Cameras are only good after the fact a crime has been committed, but do not intimidate those individuals with a serious intent to do harm.

A great start to remedying the problem of dimly-lit parking lots would be adding additional light posts to the overflow parking lot, as well as performing routine maintenance on the current light posts in Lot C. Sometimes the bulbs go out and create patches of complete darkness in the lot. The overflow parking lot is only illuminated by the light from Lot L and gets even darker as you get deeper into the lot.

According to a list of crime prevention tips listed on the Skyline’s website, students are encouraged to contact Campus Security to request an escort to walk them back to their car if they feel worried about walking back to their cars by themselves at night.

While the officers are here, they simply cannot cover the entire campus with the amount of staff available. The officers that patrol areas of the school are hard to find and contacting them is tough with the spotty cell phone service on campus.

Having a stronger presence from Campus Security would go a long way for the student’s protection even if it’s just an officer sitting in his car to oversee any potential threats in a crowded parking lot.

In order to alleviate the concerns about walking back to their cars after an evening class, the school should consider having a stronger security presence along with installing additional light posts to particular lots. Despite the additional expenses that would be spent in order to achieve this, it would ultimately make our school safer and put our students at ease when leaving campus late at night.