Campus Safety at Eckerd has recently made changes to their staff, has offered Chats with Campus Safety and has clarified issues that might be of concern to Eckerd students.
The Chats with Campus Safety was announced on Sept. 15 and is available for students to express their concerns from 1 to 2 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday outside the Campus Safety office. One of the concerns is how Eckerd manages unregistered vehicles that come onto campus and might be dropping off students or food, such as Uber, Uber Eats or Doordasher.
“Our practice is to register those vehicles at the front gate to confirm that they have a valid delivery and record where they’re going on campus with their license plate and driver information,” said Jessica Cinney, director of Campus Safety.
Non-student vehicles being monitored by Campus Safety officers while on campus depends on the circumstances according to Cinney.
As for student parking, Campus Safety says it will “continue conducting parking enforcement to ensure all vehicles are parked correctly.”
This not only includes unregistered vehicles, or vehicles parked in unmarked spots, but also first years parking in the upperclassmen lots.
During amplified sound events—allotted times when students are able to have amplified sound in a specified area, such as the Saturday parties—Cinney explained there are many precautionary measures taken to ensure student safety. Campus Safety collaborates with the hosts—students in charge of monitoring the area during amplified sound events—to make sure everyone knows exactly what their responsibilities are.
“Our procedure is to meet with the hosts before the event so that we know them and they know us. We go over the safety protocols that they learn about when they do their host training. And then throughout the night, we patrol the area to make sure there’s no violation of policy,” said Cinney.
Violations of policy include students having contraband items, causing harm to any other student or causing disturbances outside the time of the amplified sound event.
Cinney also clarified that students would be seeing new faces in the Campus Safety faculty, as they have hired new staff in the past six months.
“Yes, with security and public safety it’s very fluid, but on a college campus it is different from any other security position, so we try to get the right fit. We are sending out headshots of the campus safety officers, so that students and faculty and all our members of the Eckerd community can get to know who they’re interacting with,” said Cinney.
These new faces can be found on the Campus Safety website. In terms of security updates, Cinney also clarified when and how campus safety will alert students to any events or concerns.
“We have a duty to provide two notifications. One is a timely warning, and one is an emergency notification, which we send if there is a confirmed emergency or ongoing threat to our campus,” said Cinney.
These notifications are sent via text and email to the Eckerd community. The most recent examples of the security updates include the Nov. 3 notification of the sewage discharge in front of Delta, and the power outage across several campus dorms Halloween weekend.
Cinney also detailed how students can approach campus safety during amplified sound events or any uncomfortable situations.
“If there is ever somebody that a student does not believe is a part of our community, let us come out and address it at that time. We have an off duty police officer here on Friday and Saturday nights from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. and they can help facilitate removal of somebody that doesn’t belong here.”
Cinney said that if students feel uneasy about individuals who may not belong on campus or if they are put in an unsafe environment, it is better for Campus Safety to address it as soon as possible.
“We would rather be able to deal with it in the moment, rather than miss an opportunity to make sure that our students feel comfortable on campus. Campus Safety really is a resource for all students. We are not an adversary, we really are your advocate,” Cinney said.