Students identified what they described as eight unsafe “hotspots” on the UCLA campus in a website created last quarter for an honors class. They also suggested ways the university could improve campus safety in response to violent crimes around UCLA.
The website, called “Policies for a Safer Campus,” listed eight places on campus that the 10 students described as unsafe based on their signage, isolation, lighting and surveillance, among other characteristics.
Urban planning professor Jacqueline Leavitt, who taught the honors class, “Community and Labor Development from Ground Up,” said she wanted to focus the class on safe cities using the UCLA campus as a focal point.
The idea took the form of a safety audit, a diagnostic tool in urban planning that aims to identify potentially unsafe areas.
“It is a pilot study, so as the students point out, it’s really a first step to see how (the audit) might be used on the campus,” Leavitt said. “I was interested in seeing … if we could (find anything) that wasn’t being picked up by other groups on campus.”
University officials declined to comment about the specific details of the audit because they have not had a chance to look at the website in depth.
Campus safety has been a trending topic recently, giving national attention to sexual assault on college campuses.
A state audit released last week said that UCLA gives insufficient training to its students, educators and staff about sexual assault resources and reporting procedures.
“Looking at sexual assault is important, and it should be put into a larger context,” Leavitt said. “(Safety audits) are windows of opportunity to understand issues about safety and security that are not just in the contained environment of campuses.”
In the 2014 spring quarter’s version of the annual class, Leavitt gave students maps of the campus and asked them to identify the places they thought were safe or unsafe. She noticed that the majority of students identified potentially unsafe areas within two general parts of UCLA: South Campus and the Hill. She said some places tend to have insufficient lighting or signage and few people or exits.
During one scheduled class, students walked around the two areas, taking photographs and identifying specific locations they thought were unsafe. Their findings and pictures were compiled into summaries on the website.
During a tour of the “hotspots,” Kelly Yin stuck her head out of the dark staircase leading into the Courtside residential building and into an empty fire lane.
The current fourth-year political science student pointed to the entrance, where she said people can stand without being seen.
The fire lane is also near the edge of campus and two parking lots, which makes it accessible for individuals who do not attend UCLA, Yin said.
“It might not look dangerous during the day, but at nighttime, it’s a completely different scenario,” she said.
In a corner near the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, Yin pointed to the nearest emergency phone, located deep within Parking Structure RC. The two lamp posts near her were marked with red tape, indicating that they don’t work.
“What we found was that the dangerous areas were accessible to students, but they’re really hidden,” she said. “So that was kind of concerning for us.”
Recent UCLA alumnus Xi Zhi Lim, who took the class just before he graduated this spring, said he named parts of South Campus as unsafe “hotspots” because some buildings had potentially confusing floor numbers and he thinks some students feel unsafe in buildings with confusing signage and markings. The main entrance to Boelter Hall from the Court of Sciences, for example, is on the building’s fifth floor.
The class made recommendations based on its audit, including improving the safety in the eight “hotspots” by increasing signage and lighting in the areas, working outside of the campus borders to provide increased policing to surrounding areas and forming a commission to discuss campus safety.
The students also said they think it is important to connect with local groups, such as the Westwood Neighborhood Council and the Westwood Business Improvement District, to make safety in the areas surrounding campus a more prominent topic.
Leavitt said the students have shared their notes with the experts they interviewed for the class, including outside agencies, community and labor groups and security experts. She added that she has shared the class website with Christine Littleton, the vice provost for UCLA Diversity and Faculty Development.
University police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein said that she sent an invitation to the class on Friday to meet with her and discuss their findings.
Leavitt said she hopes to teach the class again and reach out to members of the UCLA community – such as employees who work at night – who may have different thoughts on campus safety from undergraduate students. She also said she wants to form safety focus groups including students and late-night employees to build upon the audit’s findings.
“The name of the game in many ways is communication and dialogue, and how can this report add to that as another way of increasing dialogue,” Leavitt said. “There’s no one solution, so the more people know about them the better.”