Skip to main content

The Shared Responsibility for Campus Safety

Duke Police, Graduate Student Affairs to run workshop on safety tips Friday

It's a spring evening and you decide to walk to your off-campus apartment. Or after a long day at work, you take a solitary jog. Or you're skimming your "to do" list as you walk to the parking lot.

"Those are the types of things that many people don't realize could put them at risk of becoming a victim of crime," said David Williams, crime prevention manager for Duke University Police Department. "Sometimes it's just a matter of reminding people about the importance of changing their routine or behavior to increase their personal safety."

Using Duke's SafeRides, finding a jogging partner and always being observant are among the safety tips that Williams will offer during a crime prevention workshop on "Personal Safety and Security in Transit" at 1:30 p.m. Friday in the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences' (CIEMAS) Schiciano Auditorium B.

The free workshop is open to all Duke students, faculty and staff. It is part of ongoing efforts by Duke Police to help foster an alert community that embraces safety as a shared responsibility.

"Keeping the Duke community safe is our top priority, and we view this as a shared responsibility with our community," said Aaron Graves, Duke's associate vice president for safety and security. "By offering crime prevention and awareness training to our students, faculty and staff, Duke is taking another step toward keeping our entire community safe."

Crime prevention workshops are among the services provided by Duke Police. Any student organization or department can contact Duke Police for a workshop tailored to their needs at no charge.

"We're here for the community," Williams said. "Among our crime prevention services, we perform security surveys, engraving sessions, and analyze and track crime reports to determine specific crime prevention initiatives."

 

Friday's workshop is organized by the Office of Graduate Student Affairs and the Pratt School of Engineering in collaboration with the Duke and Durham police departments. Representatives from both police departments will attend the workshop.

The workshop is part of a series of four forums that will be hosted by Graduate Student Affairs in coming weeks. Other topics will include home safety, crime prevention resources, reporting and responding to a crime, crime-related communication, advanced safety training, and Duke and Durham crime statistics. Dates and locations for the upcoming safety workshops are being formalized.

Tomalei Vess, assistant dean for graduate student development, said Friday's workshop is designed with the graduate student lifestyle in mind and will also address the experiences of international students but all members of the Duke community can benefit from the information.

"Duke is a safe place, but no one is immune from crime," Vess said. "It's unfortunate, but that's reality in the modern world. We need to change our habits because the criminals aren't going to change theirs."