Students, administrators and police took part in UT’s annual Safety Walk Wednesday, breaking the university into four routes and finding various problems across campus.
Each team, armed with a disposable camera and writing gear, walked through the growing darkness searching for unsafe conditions.
Jenny Wright, director of SGA Student Services, lead one team of the four teams around Presidential Courtyard.
Walking by the Intramural Fields, Wright asked about the lighting there. Lt. Keith Lambert of the UT Police Department explained that the lighting remains on until at least 11 p.m. and the UT police are alerted to nights when the lights will be off.
“We also have a walking officer who checks around here and the aquatic center,” Lambert said.
Michael West, director of University Housing Administration, said he had heard of problems here two or three years ago, but nothing lately. Another administrator who works in the Dean of Student offices, J.J. Brown, interim dean of students, agreed.
Walking into Presidential Courtyard, Wright said the area was well lit.
“This is probably the best lit area on campus,” Lambert said.
But, despite the lighting, there was danger lurking.
Against one wall sat three men behind a table soliciting students to fill out credit card applications.
Brown and Lambert quickly asked the men whose approval they had to be there. In just a matter of minutes, Lambert had conducted a field interview, told the men to not come back and called dispatch to have other officers ensure the men did not return.
“It’s really to safeguard the students,” Lambert said after the men had left. “What student doesn’t need a credit card?”
Past Presidential Courtyard, Wright noticed that Mountcastle Avenue had no sidewalk. A picture was taken and the problem cited on a yellow notepad.
There was no curbside ramp on the corner of Chi Phi Avenue and Lake Avenue. The process of logging the problem with pen and camera was repeated.
On Andy Holt Avenue, a four-inch rise in one sidewalk section was noted. Lambert said that had been logged on last year’s safety walk. Again, it was logged.
Lambert, a veteran of the safety walks for the last 12 years, noted several improvements around campus that were suggested during the walks.
The four routes roughly covered the area around The Hill, Presidential Courtyard, Fraternity Park and the Agricultural Campus. The information from the four routes will be compiled into a report and presented to UT administration.
