UBC Safewalk calls still high
Posted January 15, 2014 10:19 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It was only a few months ago that a string of sexual assaults on the UBC campus captured the city’s attention.
That campus is once again buzzing with life with classes back in session but the memory is still fresh on peoples’ minds.
Calls to the campus’s Safewalk program exploded last Fall in the wake of the assaults.
They’re lower than last Fall but still high for this time of the year says Matthew Dugay with the UBC Alma Mater Society, which runs the program.
“In comparison to January of 2012 and January 2013, calls are significantly higher.”
He says that’s because it’s still early in the semester and students aren’t staying late on campus to study yet.
Dugay has been with the program for two years and says the attacks are still on everyone’s mind.
“It’s on the forefront of students’ minds because the suspect was never apprehended.”
He says Safewalk is keeping higher than normal staffing levels at the ready to deal with the increase in calls.
“It’s kind of been a different mindset on campus, now everyone walks in groups. But the ones that do call us say yes, they do feel they need to call someone because they have no one else to walk with.”
