Safety & Security on campus

I remembered when I enrolled into York University, bunch of questions regarding scholarship, residence and campus environment popped up in my head. As an international student myself, the campus safety issue was what I concerned the most. 

Having lived in residence for 3 years, I became more familiar with the campus along with the student services and programs that it offers. I find out that there are a variety of safety services that are offered at York. From what I've experienced, Keele campus is a safe place. There are many security supports here. The following three supports are the most frequently used from my perspective.

Go safe stop on campus

Gosafe shuttle at York village

GoSAFE: This is a complimentary service to help students and their guests safely get from one on-campus location to another. It works to pro-actively in maintaining a safe and secure environment on campus. I heard about this program from my first year’s orientation and further this knowledge from my friend’s personal experience. My friend commuted last year and she had three evening classes every week. It was pretty far walking towards the parking lot from her class. What she did last year was that she called goSAFE to pick her up from her class location and walked her to the parking lot. The best thing I heard from goSAFE program was that it not only walked students to any on-campus drop-off locations, parking lots, bus stops or residence, but also can be researched by dialing 416-736-5454, using any of the Blue Light Emergence Phones or Payphones that are located in many locations on campus!

Blue Light Emergency Phone on campus

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) and Blue Light Emergency Phone (BLEP): CCTV cameras are located in parking lots, pedestrian tunnels, the York Lanes malls and other areas of the university. All the cameras are in-color video recording of incidents that can be used for investigation purposes. The Blue Light Emergency Phones are located everywhere on campus. These phones are equipped with a blue light that are visible both in the day and at night. As a student myself, I never use this phone until two month ago. I found a wallet near the parking lot outside of the Atkinson building. At that time, I did not know what to do so I just used the BLEP, I was a little bit nervous since I never tried using this service before and did not know how to use it. However, once I pressed the call button, the call was directly connected to the Security Control Centre. (Easy as ABC huh? :) The most amazing part was that the officer who talked to me had already known my location and he even knew what I was wearing (probably there was a CCTV close to each BLEP), pretty cool, right?

ISP near lecture room

Indoor Safety Phones (ISP): It works all most the same as Blue Light Emergency Phone. The only difference is that it is settled indoor. Meanwhile, classrooms and lectures with a seating capacity of 75 and over have also been equipped with classroom safety phones. I remembered once, we had a lecture where the computer did not work and the professor used the ISP to call the classroom assistant. The assistant just came within a minute and fixed the problem. The whole story was happened within 3 minutes. I feel that the facilities at York are very adequate.

In addition, there are tons of other useful supports that York Security Department offers, such as Sexual Assault Support and Resources, Safety Training, Community Safety Council and more. Also, there are some safety tips for first year students to know!

Last but not least, here is a link for the safety tips for students. From my perspective, Keele campus is a pretty safe place. York Security is very professional and recently I heard they've been under added pressure to extend services to the Village which is technically not part of the Keele Campus. Here is a Keele Campus Safety Tour.