Walk for Light restarted

UR Security officers, students and administrators came together to improve the security of the campus in the Walk for Light on Tuesday night. “I really do feel comfortable with what we’ve helped,” sophomore Abha Dhakal said. As chair of the Students’ Association Senate Projects and Services Committee, Dhakal helped organize the walk and get members of the student body involved in it. The Walk for Light has been used by UR Security for a long time to determine what areas of campus need greater attention, better maintenance or more light and visibility. “This is probably the 22nd time we’ve done this in the last 25 years,” Director of Security Walter Mauldin said. Architects and landscapers might miss important details about where greater precautions are needed, but walking around campus can reveal a lot. “The Walk for Light program exposed a de facto [need],” Mauldin said, describing how a light was placed by an unplanned footpath. “Students, like water, found the shortest distance between two points.”The walk had not been held in recent years because UR Security felt it was unnecessary. “We haven’t done it in the last few years because we made a lot of strides, but we didn’t want to lose that,” Mauldin said. Dean of Students Jody Asbury felt that the night was a success. “It went really well,” she said. She said that the walk’s importance was highlighted by recent events at other colleges. “I’m all too aware of what’s happened at Hobart and Williams Smith [colleges],” she said, referring to three attacks or attempted attacks on students this semester.”It was planned before the outbreak of sexual assaults at Hobart and Williams Smith,” SA President and senior Pete Nabozny said. “But I’m glad we did it as a response to that.” About 25 students and administrators participated this year, which is about average. “Some years we’ve had as few as 10 or 12, some years we’ve had a hundred,” Mauldin said. “[Tuesday] night was probably in the range of typical.”The Walk for Light is important because it lets security know which areas are less safe than others, but it also plays a part in setting their budget for the next year. “It [happens] when we’re setting our budget priorities for the next year,” Mauldin said. For example, the walk determines what kind of lights will be needed, and where they will need to be installed. Levesque can be reached at clevesque@campustimes.org.