How safe are we walking through the college parking lots at night? Is our property in danger whenever we leave our dorm rooms?

Over the past semester, a group of students in Randall Hollingsworth’s Small Group Communications class have completed a project seeking to improve the safety of students, possessions and school property.

Freshman John Youngblood, juniors Matt Green and Johnny Cannon, and senior Caleb Haynes together have sniffed out some significant ways to improve campus security. Photo courtesy of Tim Baldi.

Freshman John Youngblood, sophomore Matthew Green, junior Johnny Cannon and senior Caleb Haynes participated in the interviews, surveys and research used to investigate the methods and success of Bryan’s current safety procedures.

The group interviewed Vice President of Operations Tim Hostetler, Dean of Students Bruce Morgan, Vice President of Enrollment Management Mike Sapienza and Resident Director of Woodlee-Ewing dorm Tim Shetter.

External threats

In their interviews, Hostetler and Sapienza said that Bryan has Night Watch staff but no official security team.

Night Watch workers function as eyes and ears to report wrongdoing to the police, lock doors and let students into their dorms past curfew, said Green.

Night Watch is effective in what it does, according to Hostetler, but it only deals with non-students coming on campus at night.

Night Watch patrols campus every night from 9 p.m. until 7 a.m.

When a decorative pond was vandalized in the cafeteria the night after spring banquet, a Night Watch worker assisted students in cleaning the mess by providing access to water vacuums, mops and buckets from around campus.

In addition to Night Watch, Dayton police make rounds on Bryan’s campus about eight times every night.

According to Shetter and the group, additional lighting in parking lots and roads around Summers Gym and the soccer fields would improve campus safety at night.

They also recommended that cameras continue to be installed and more consistently monitored by staff around campus as needed and outside of the residence halls.

The small group also recommends easier access and awareness of Night Watch’s phone number: (423-718-6696).

Property Theft

According to the 2008-2009 Campus Security Report, nine accounts of theft were reported last school year. However, we know from experience and hearsay that many thefts go unreported, said Green.

Last October, Alexander Haynes, who is not enrolled at Bryan, entered Woodlee under the pretense of selling magazine subscriptions. He was later arrested for stealing then freshman Drew Thompson’s iPod Touch and told to leave the state of Tennessee for a minimum of four years.

Unlike this occurrence last semester, thefts on campus often remain unsolved according to Shetter.

Game systems, laptops and iPods are the most common items reported stolen, said Shetter. The majority of thefts occur between 8 p.m. and midnight.

Green said that many thefts also occur while students are in chapel.

Shetter said that students can be more involved in protecting their property by locking dorm rooms and putting valuables out of sight when their rooms are unattended.

Both Shetter and the group would like to have a security guard on patrol from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. when the majority of thefts happen.

Three Bryan students drove to Knoxville Sunday, March 28, planning to purchase a Playstation 3 for $210 off Craigslist.com. They wound up paying far more than they bargained for.

Senior Andrew Slikker, junior Johnny Cannon and sophomore Victor Underwood arrived at Scottish Pike Park in Knoxville at 6 p.m., as instructed by a man who called himself Jeremy. They then waited an hour for him to arrive.

“We were cutting up and having a good time…and joking around about all the things that could go wrong and the reasons why we should leave,” Slikker said Tuesday.

He admitted that they joked about the possibility of being robbed but felt safe because they were in a public area.

When Jeremy arrived, the students got out of their car and noticed Jeremy pulling a Playstation box from his car.

Meanwhile, Slikker noticed a man wearing a ball cap and a dark hooded sweatshirt pulled tight around his face approaching them from behind.

“I knew as soon as I saw him it was going to happen,” Slikker said.

The man pulled a gun from his sweatshirt, putting it to Cannon’s back and forcing him to the ground. The gunman yelled for the other students to get on the ground and empty their pockets.

Jeremy then accused the students of setting up the robbery.

“Yeah, that’s why he’s robbing us and not you,” Slikker responded.

The gunman stole Cannon’s and Underwood’s wallets, Underwood’s keys and the $210 that Slikker brought for the Playstation.

The gunman then ran off around the corner.

According to Slikker, Jeremy yelled, “I’m going after him,” and sped away in his car in the same direction as the gunman.

The students learned from a witness that the gunman got into Jeremy’s car around the corner—when they were out of the students’ view.

The police apprehended Jeremy, whose real name is John White.

Although the students positively identified White and accused him of being an accessory in the robbery, White claimed that the gunman also robbed him.

The police found a man fitting the description of the gunman at White’s house.

However, because the students were unable to positively identify the man from White’s house as the gunman, the police said they did not have enough “probable cause” to search White’s car or house.

“So, the guys walked,” Slikker said.

The students heard a police officer say that the unidentified man, fitting the description of the gunman, is on parole for second-degree murder.

“The worst part,” Slikker said, “is the embarrassment of letting it happen.”

When asked if he had any advice for future Craigslist users, Slikker said with a smirk, “Meet at the police station.”

Photo courtesy of Maddie Doucet.

Associate Professor of Communications Randy Hollingsworth proposed an idea to his small group communication class: Find a way that you can improve the Bryan College campus and attempt to make the needed changes over the course of the semester.

The students formulated ideas such as improving the study abroad program’s public relations, the music department and the Triangle’s website.

One of the small groups in the class—senior Caleb Haynes, junior Johnny Cannon, sophomore Matt Green and freshman John Youngblood—decided to address the improvement of the campus security system.

“We want to evaluate the current security and emergency system that’s in place and identify any key problem areas, which we do feel exist just from hearsay and personal experience,” Green said.

Green suggested that if Bryan had additional cameras on the doors outside of the dorm, then it would make it easier for law enforcement to pull the security tapes and to question the correct people.

“Nothing that invades someone privacy—we don’t want to put the cameras in the dorms,” Green said. “But no one wants their stuff stolen.”

Crime on Bryan campus

Freshman Drew Thompson said that he was not aware that Bryan had any security; his iPod Touch was stolen on Oct. 10. He described how Alexander Haynes, a young man from Colorado who was in Dayton under the pretense of selling magazine subscriptions, was with a group of people who were walking into dorms on campus.

“If we had an actual security officer, he could’ve stopped this group from marching around campus and into the dorms,” Thompson said.

Sophomores Clayton Schmidt and Josh Ragland spotted Haynes in Woodlee-Ewing dorm. According to Schmidt, they did not see the actual theft but noticed him in the dorm and told the police.

Haynes was apprehended later that day when a police officer pulled him over because the tail light on his vehicle was out. Schmidt said that the officer saw the headphones from the iPod Touch hanging out of Haynes’ shirt front. None of the others in the group were charged.

Schmidt, Ragland and Thompson were called to testify against Haynes Jan. 21. Schmidt said that Haynes had been in jail for about three months leading up to the trial but had been bailed out on Christmas Day by his mother.

After they testified, the judge banned Haynes from the state of Tennessee for at least four years.

“The judge told Haynes if he came back, then they would prosecute him,” Schmidt said.

Lack of security factors into student’s decision to live on campus

Senior Caleb Haynes considered living on campus, but security was one of the factors that helped him decide to commute. He also has several friends that have had personal items stolen, including a unicycle.

“Security here is pretty scarce,” Haynes said. “And security doors in dorms are easy to trip with coat hangers and other objects.”

Students formulate a plan to evaluate the security system on campus

The first step the group will take is to evaluate the current security system and determine if there is an actual problem, according to Haynes.

Green said that they plan to interview Vice President for Operations Tim Hostetler, Dean of Students Bruce Morgan and Vice President for Student Life Dr. Peter Held to obtain an idea of what measures are being taken to protect students.

In the next couple of weeks, the group will send out a survey to students to see if they feel that security needs to be addressed. They hope to obtain around 100 responses from the students.

“We aren’t trying to make people feel unsafe, but everything can always be improved at some point,” Haynes said.

The group plans to look at local and intra-school issues, according to Haynes, but also crime statistics in the local community.

Thompson said that improved security on campus would make students feel safer.

The group is presently in the beginning stages of the project. By the end of the semester, they hope to have the current security system evaluated and to have detected any flaws that need improvement. Their goal is to have a security system on campus that is appropriate to the level needed at Bryan.