One week after an unidentified male peered into an occupied women's shower stall in Smith Hall, a group of students led by Amanda Molk '01 is petitioning Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman for increased safety measures in residence hall bathrooms.
"We are very unsettled by such an incident occurring in one of our residence halls," the petition states.
Safety measures proposed include full-length latching shower doors and panic buttons in each stall, enabling students to contact Safety and Security in times of emergency.
Such changes aim to make "more safe space for students and a less inviting atmosphere for predators."
According to Molk, as of yesterday afternoon approximately 40 signatures -- including five from professors -- had been gathered on the petition, which began circulating Monday night.
But Molk's plans did not begin on Monday, but instead as soon as she heard of the incident in Smith. Talking with both male and female friends, Molk decided the College should take action to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
"I don't think that anyone on this campus should be made to feel unsafe if there's something the College can do about it," Molk said.
As the intern for the Sexual Abuse Awareness program, Molk enlisted the help of Acting Sexual Abuse Awareness Program Coordinator Abby Tassel, and the two met with Safety and Security Officer Mark Lancaster on Monday to discuss campus safety.
Afterwards, Molk developed the petition and garnered support for her proposals from the Women's Council.
"It's an issue we should all care about. ... Changes are long overdue," Sarah Warlick '01, a Women's Council member, said.
But according to Lancaster, incidents similar to the Smith shower intrusion are rare on campus. The last similar incident occurred five years in the past.
However, Warlick sees parallels between the Smith incident and the "questionable incident in Topliff" last term, in which a drunken male walked into the unlocked dorm room of a female student and climbed into bed with the student.
"We should be able to feel comfortable in our own homes," Warlick added.
The changes Molk proposes would need to be implemented by ORL, but according to Redman, his staff hasn't received any official notification of the petition.
But even without reviewing the petition in depth and discussing it with his staff, Redman already sees several problems with the petition's proposals.
Wiring required for panic buttons, for example, would not function in a wet shower stall, and glass in shower doors might not be feasible either, Redman said.
In addition, Redman sees the incident in Smith and other related incidents as indicative of a much broader safety problem.
"Issues of safety aren't about bathrooms, they're about who's in the building," Redman said, and the ideal solution in his mind would be to simply lock all exterior residence hall doors.
But according to Molk, such a solution was not considered in the petition due to lack of student support. "We were trying to come up with something that won't inconvenience people while still making people safer," Molk said.
Redman agrees that student support for door locking is lacking, with a door-locking proposal presented several years ago by a college committee rejected due to strong student opposition.
But even locking all residence halls would not solve all safety concerns, Redman notes, because gym showers and public bathrooms all across campus are still completely open, and many other isolated campus locations still left vulnerable, especially at night.
In addition, while there are many security systems the College could implement, "security systems are only as good as those who use them."
Until students see safety as a concern and are willing to take measures such as locking their doors and keeping lock codes private, they will remain vulnerable, Redman said.
With concerned students circulating Molk's petition via mass BlitzMail messages, Molk plans to finish gathering signatures tonight and meet with ORL officials in the near future.
"It's definitely something we tried to not waste a lot of time on," she said.
"If we can't feel safe even taking a shower, that's going to negatively impact our whole College experience," Molk added.
