Cuts to Safewalk could mean cuts to safety for UBC students
Posted May 3, 2010 6:52 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Nearly 46,000 students walk the UBC campus every year. We’ve learned despite a series of sexual assaults in Vancouver, and the chilling death of a woman in Pacific Spirit Park last year, the school is cutting back some of its campus safety programs.
UBC’s Alma Mater Society has voted to merge the safety office with the Safewalk Program. That is a big concern for Joanna Chiu and her investigative team at the campus paper, the Ubyssey.
She calls Safewalk one of the most unique programs in Canada because at UBC staff members are paid. “I think that’s a really good program but this year the funding has been cut and it’s been criticized because it takes up so much of the budget.”
But Chiu acknowledges the program is underused. She thinks it’s because some believe no-one wants to think of campus life as unsafe. Her recent research also concludes that, just like in Vancouver, sexual assaults happen at UBC and they are unreported.
