Kudos for the faculty member who made this statement today regarding snapchat and other issues with social media. It was really a highlight of the meeting and good advice in general.
I thought I’d open up the forum if anyone would like to comment on today’s mandatory meeting.
The Harold Lounge 
How did I miss this comment? And to what does it refer?
(For the record, my favorite question/comment, of many good ones on offer, was Kristin Bivins’ suggestion to honor the spirit of the Cleary Act by considering the holistic, door-to-door safety of our students. It would be a big research project, but maybe it could be limited in a way that made it feasible–what if we identified the CTA routes that students are most likely to take to school and included those crime reports in our OWN college report? (No offense to Mr. Owens and his law enforcement experience, but the fact that the law requires one kind of report does not make it illegal to develop another kind of report–he seemed to miss that point entirely.)
Seems like a good job for a student security intern to me.
Porn comment referred to snapchat and revenge porn and how our students should be informed that their personal intimacy won’t stay personal and they shouldn’t share that information. I think that’s what it meant.
And yes, Mr. Owens was so focused on telling us the law he did miss the point of Kristen’s question. Could we perhaps identify the neighborhoods which many of our students live in and then compile data that way? What would be the purpose of the data would be my question, perhaps Kristin can elaborate on her idea.
Hey! I will pop in here and elaborate on my comment from last Friday. First, I hope I spoke enough about how much I respect Director Owens and all of the security at HW. I really, most sincerely, hope they know how much we appreciate how well they do their difficult jobs. Second, I agree: Director Owens did miss my question, but he realized it, too. I caught up with him after the meeting, and we spoke. I told him I am not one to give more work to someone else (well, unless you’re a student!), so I told him I would follow up with him sometime over break.
Trust me: Director Owens is on the same page as us. He just misunderstood to begin with.
The Clery Act is groundbreaking for universities and other traditional college campuses. I think we are unique in that we do not have dormitories: we are a commuter campus. The Clery Center for Security on Campus (http://clerycenter.org/) appears to be an excellent organization. I think our campus, like other urban two-year institutions, is unique. I think we are also faced with a unique opportunity to do better, reporting-wise, for our students, staff, and faculty.
I pour over campus crime statistics from time-to-time. I wonder what it’s like to live in some of the more violent areas of Chicago. I wonder about the daily realities our students are faced with after they get off the train or bus. I wonder, then I think about violence. I have approached Margie about self-defense classes on campus. I think, maybe, we might be able to get grant funding to host some. I know a faculty member who is qualified to teach them, but of course, that faculty member should be compensated.
Maybe I’ll put together a longer post about this after I have recovered from the end of the semester. Maybe it’s a topic for CAST in the spring. I can see us crowdwriting a grant application for the self-defense classes. I can see Director Owens and other security officers working with staff and faculty to help us make our students safe as they leave our college. I recall President Wozniak once remarking that there are 150,000 or so students in the Loop everyday. Doesn’t that make a clear argument for treating the entire Loop as a college campus?