I think we can all agree that crime is not exclusive to IUB. The crime alerts that I receive as a parent are released when there is imminent danger to the students of IUB. For instance, there was a murder-suicide on campus, but we were not alerted because there was no danger to other students. We were alerted to the rape this week because it occurred in an off campus area where students live, and the criminal had a semi automatic handgun.
I have had time to really think about our situation and the school’s current situation. This is my lesson/take-away:
I did not put safety at the top of the list of things to research at each University. Now, any school can say they have a cooperative city police and an active on campus police department. But, as a parent, I did not look forward to where and what will my daughter be doing on the weekends. And, how will this affect her safety, especially on a campus that does have a history of serious crimes. I feel like parents are not asking the ‘what ifs’ and hard questions. I remember being at the housing presentation at admit student day, and the questions were: can they bring a fridge? Where will they park? etc. No one asked what their policy and rules were, and they didn’t offer them either.
I have been told twice that if my daughter feels unsafe she should call the police or the campus police. I am sure the girl who was stabbed last week did not feel unsafe until she was stabbed. My point is that IUB is very compartmentalized in their efforts to keep these students safe. The housing department is passing the buck on safety to the campus police. The housing department still believes I want my daughter to be in a dorm with all of her friends so she can be social, instead of my truth which is for safety. After speaking to housing on two occasions, I feel like IUB is a big school that acts like a big school. School goals: If you or your child wants a big school, find the one that is big but manages to be small. And, I admit I ignored this during the visits we made to the school. When I look back, IUB had my least favorite presentation of all the schools we visited. I thought they just needed to hire a pr person to fine tune, however, now I think that the presentation was a good representation of how they manage the school and their students.