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The Etownian
www.etownian.com
Vol. 114. Issue 11
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Series: Do students feel safe on their campuses? January raises
awareness for human trafficking by Stephanie Miller Copy Chief
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Photo: Megan White| Photography Editor
Here at the College, Campus Security makes student safety its main concern. Along with officers patroling the campus, Campus Security also promotes the LiveSafe application and the Blue Light system as other ways of ensuring student safety.
by Meghan Kenney Staff Writer
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lizabethtown College prides itself on the safety of its campus. There are also many available resources, such as blue lights and the LiveSafe app, which are in use around campus. But do students feel safe here? This series will go into detail about safety around campus, beginning with the thoughts and feelings from students, professors and Campus Security employees. Rebecca Easton, a junior who has been a Jaywalker since the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, said Jaywalkers often get questions from parents about security on campus while on tours. “‘Is the campus safe?’ is a question that opens a plethora of doors for people to talk about,” Easton said. “The response is usually something like, ‘campus is usually pretty safe.’ We talk about the community aspect of Etown and we also talk about the blue lights. When we are walking, even if the parents do not ask about safety, we usually talk about it when we get to the blue light right by the Dell.” Easton also said that she believes that parents are asking these questions because they are “naturally concerned for their children” and that some parents say that they ask about safety at every institution that they visit. As a Jaywalker, Easton tries to provide a “multilayered” answer to security questions in hopes of reassuring nervous parents. Yet, as first-year and Etownian staff writer Sofia Jurado observed, some Jaywalkers can be “vague” when it comes to questions about security. “A
Jaywalker explicitly [told Jurado’s tour group in 2016 during her tour of campus] that nothing extreme had happened on campus for the last few years,” Jurado said. “She expressed how safe the campus was and really stressed how safe she feels even walking home at night. But, she never explained what she meant by ‘extreme,’ meaning she never explicitly said anything about no rapes, no assaults, no alcohol, etc.” Etown’s Jaywalkers are instructed to explain the LiveSafe app on tours of the campus. LiveSafe was designed to be an easy and direct connection to Campus Security and other students on campus. With features that allow students to report tips, chat with Campus Security, make emergency phone calls and participate in virtual escorts and safety check-ins, LiveSafe is an easy access point for students. Students are encouraged to get the app from their first day at Etown during orientation, where it is described in great detail and its use is encouraged many different times. But what about when students cannot access their phones? Campus Security Director Andrew Powell said that Campus Security Officers and Student Patrol Officers are constantly roaming the campus on foot and in vehicles in hopes of always being available and accessible. The other option for students around campus is the blue light system. There are 40 blue lights around campus, typically seen as a blue light above a yellow call box on lamp posts. When a student presses the button on the call box, it rings, similar to a normal telephone, and calls the Campus Security Office, where there is always somebody on call. That on-call employee then sends an officer to the
box that was activated, whether it be an accident or not, to check out the situation. Powell also said that LiveSafe is a valuable addition to the campus. He said that Etown has a relatively safe campus and that the diligence of Campus Security Officers on-call and on-patrol heavily contributes to how safe the campus is. When it comes to colleges overall, the crime rate among campuses has gone down in recent years, but institutions are still looking to lower the numbers. In 2015, the Campus Safety and Security section of the U.S. Department of Education reported a total of 36,248 criminal offenses throughout 11,306 campuses. In that year, Etown had only 15 reported criminal offenses. When comparing Etown (reported enrollment 1,820) to other Pennsylvania schools—Messiah College (3,302), Pennsylvania State University Main Campus (47,307) and Millersville University (7,959)—the numbers tell another story. In 2015, Etown had nine reports of rape, Messiah had two, Penn State had 51 and Millersville had three. In both raw numbers and ratios to total enrollment, Etown’s numbers were significant. Yet, when it came to disciplinary actions, Etown had a total of 151 law violations while Messiah had 24, Penn State had 1,236 and Millersville had 171, putting Etown with a high ratio of law violations to total students. One other statistic from the U.S. Department of Education is the number of stalking offenses— Etown had six, Messiah had none, Penn State had 20 and Millersville had three. SEE CAMPUS SECURITY PAGE 2
anuary has been named National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Wednesday, Jan. 11, was designated “Wear Blue Day” by the Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign, which aims to combat human trafficking within the U.S. However, not many people know exactly what qualifies as human trafficking or how prevalent it still is around the world. “Human trafficking and even sex trafficking isn’t just a white girl abducted for sex and chained to a radiator,” Elizabethtown College Professor of Social Work Dr. Susan Mapp said. “That does happen, but it’s only a small proportion.” The two main types of human trafficking focused on labor and sex. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, there are some criteria an act needs to meet to be considered human trafficking. First, it includes an “act” that can be anything from trying to recruit people for illegal labor or sex to transporting slaves. In cases other than the sex trafficking of minors, traffickers also need a “means,” or a way, to carry out the act. These include force, fraud and coercion. Finally, there needs to be a “purpose,” or reason, for the trafficking. Often the reasons are to exploit victims (be it for sexual purposes like prostitution or labor purposes like having inexpensive employees) and to make money while doing so. Signs of labor trafficking include working unusual, irregular or excessively long hours, owing a large debt and never being able to pay it off or having high security measures at one’s workplace, including opaque or boarded up windows and security cameras. Showing physical signs of neglect or sexual abuse, acting anxious when someone brings up law enforcement and not being allowed to speak for oneself are all signs of sex trafficking. According to the Polaris Project, a national organization that aims to prevent and combat human trafficking, an estimated 4.5 million people worldwide are currently involved in forced sexual exploitation. The organization also reports that in 2016, one in six runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was a sex trafficking victim. “Even though sex trafficking receives more media attention, more people are trafficked for labor than sex,” Mapp said. SEE JANUARY PAGE 2
Education program expands partnership with U-GRO Learning Centres by Elizabeth Gipe Asst. News Editor
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t is required for first-year Elizabethtown C ollege education majors to visit classrooms and observe a typical classroom setting. W i t h t h e C o l l e g e’s e x p a n d e d p ar t nership w it h U-GRO L e ar ning Centres, there will be more opportunities for students to experience that classroom setting in spring 2019. U - G R O L e a r n i n g C e nt r e s i s a n organization that operates in Central Pennsylvania with a dozen childcare facilities. They specialize in preparing children for kindergar ten, and this fall, the organization announced that they will
be opening a new facility at the Masonic Villages in Elizabethtown. This new facility, which will be located only a mile away f rom the C ollege campus, provides education majors the perfect opportunity to obser ve early childhood education through a lab-school environment. “A t E l i z a b e t h t o w n , w e k n o w how imp or tant real-world learning opportunities are,” Associate Professor of education and Department Chair Rachel Finley-Bowman said. Lab-school environments are advant age ous to p arents, chi ldren, students and professors alike. Students and professors can conduct re s e a rc h w h i l e i n t h e c l a s s ro om s , d is c ove r i ng w h i ch appro a che s and strategies work best in education.
Children and their parents can see development in the program as they prepare for kindergarten and elementary school. “With kindergarten readiness scores of 96.8 percent, this new center will allow us to provide the best possible start in life for even more children in South-Central Pennsylvania,” President and CEO of U-GRO Learning Centres Greg Holsinger said. U-GRO’s specialized curriculum mixes both teacher- and student-led learning in order to optimize early childhood development. Etown students stationed in the future Masonic Villages center will be able to cooperate with the U-GRO teachers to develop the most effective teaching methods for the children; it will be a
collaboration of ideas and a discussion from both sides. I n t h e n e w Ma s o n i c Vi l l a g e s Elizabethtown facility, there are plans for outdoor and indoor playspaces and 10 classrooms and learning spaces. The facility will be available for 148 full- and part-time children aged from six weeks to fifth grade and will offer full-day kindergarten, before- and after-school programs and summer camps. “We look forward to welcoming the greater Elizabethtown area community t o U - G R O’s e x c e p t i o n a l l e a r n i n g experiences,” Holsinger said. Student teachers from the College will be able to enter the Masonic Villages U-GRO classrooms in spring 2019 when the facility opens. Construction of the facility will begin sometime this year.