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BY MARIA KHIM

In print | November 15, 2007

In response to the recent thefts that have been occurring in McCabe and in other locations around campus, there have been multiple efforts to ameliorate the situation, including informative posters, increased Public Safety patrols and discussion of making various security devices such as lockers and lock down cables available to the students.

When the thefts were first reported, Public

Safety took measures to look over the security

camera recordings, but were not able to find anything substantial. “We have recordings and have examined them, but it’s very time consuming and requires a lot of man-power, which is a limited resource,” Director of Public Safety Owen Redgrave said. “Security cameras are most helpful in cases in which a specific time frame is provided, but in the cases so far, it hasn’t proved so helpful.”

In addition, according to Redgrave, Public Safety has been concentrating some of their resources to pay closer attention to particular parts of campus such as McCabe. Now, Public Safety officers routinely patrol the library. “Thefts of opportunity are the most prevalent crime on any college campus, including our own,” Redgrave said, adding that it was fortunate that none of the cases involved violence or forced theft.

Redgrave also said that the Swarthmore Borough Police Department was notified of these events and had offered to provide help.

For students, the recent series of events served as a reason to raise more awareness about campus security, specifically concerning personal belongings.

“They have to be more aware now, now that signs have been put up and e-mails sent out. I think more people will lock their computers or make sure someone is watching them when they go somewhere,” student McCabe worker Joel Tolliver ’10 said.

There has also been continued discussion about the possibility of providing access to various equipment and security devices on campus, such as lockers and lock down cables.

“We are currently pricing lockers,” Associate Vice President for Facilities Stu Hain said in an e-mail. “We are also looking for the best device to provide the possibility of locking computers to desks. I expect us to provide both. I am not yet sure how long it will take.”

In addition, Facilities has been looking into attaching anchor plates to the carrels throughout the library in order to secure laptops as an additional security device. Access & Lending Services Supervisor Alison Masterpasqua said, “We are planning to have lock down cables that people will be able to check out, and also to put anchor plates on the carrels so that people can use them to lock down their computers to.”

Masterpasqua added that it is easy to be lax, but that recently she has seen more students being aware and careful.

“It’s easy to feel safe here because it’s a small community and there’s not much contact with the outside world, but there have been students who have seen someone that they weren’t sure should be here and said something, but in all those cases it didn’t turn out to be anything. But there have been students who are being more aware,” Masterpasquasaid.

“I think it’s mostly the students’ responsibility and people shouldn’t be paranoid, but just use a little common sense,” Katherine Sauvain ’09 said. “I think computers are the big issue, so having cables available at the reserve desk would be useful and people would take advantage of that.”

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