So far, this series has gone through the past and present of Elizabethtown College Campus Security. It has left many wondering, “what is going to happen now?”
According to Campus Security Director Andrew Powell, LiveSafe is the future. LiveSafe is the app that all students are encouraged to get on their phones. It has many safety features such as the ability to report tips to Campus Security, a safety map, SafeWalk/Safety Escort, quick links to important phone numbers and a message line that directly connects to Campus Security.
The safety map shows the user’s location as well as the location of the blue lights around the campus, medical facilities, fire and police stations and the Campus Security building.
The blue light feature is also updated as non-functioning call boxes are taken off the app, such as the box on the lamppost outside of Myer Residence Hall (which was on a lamppost that fell over, rendering the box inactive).
The SafeWalk and Safety Escorts are under the GoSafe feature on the main menu. The SafeWalk allows users to ask friends to watch them walk or to watch friends walk themselves.
When asking friends to watch a walk, users can input a destination and a friend’s number and then watch themselves walk on the map. The app will calculate how long it should take the user to get to a destination based on their pace and time them.
If users are not getting to their destinations by the expected time, the app gives a quick option to call the police if needed. Upon inputting the friend’s information, the friend will get a text saying that someone requests that they watch him or her on SafeWalk with a link that will direct this person to his or her own LiveSafe app, where it will track the friend’s route while walking.
The app also gives many different calling options as well, such as a quick call to the friend, Campus Security and the police. The app will also alert the friend when the user has arrived at the destination or has stopped the SafeWalk. The Safety Escort feature allows students to request an escort from Campus Security and is available at all hours of the day.
Users input a pick-up location and a destination location, and that request goes straight to Campus Security.
LiveSafe is also used for some campuswide communication for emergencies in which texts and phone calls to all students, faculty and parents would be sent out.
Campus Security is aware that LiveSafe is not always going to be available. There are circumstances in which students may not have access to their cellphone during an emergency. The app could also glitch while in use, or the Wi-Fi could crash.
There are many possibilities for LiveSafe not to be a go-to. First-year Sarah Fake has experienced many issues with the app.
“I like the concept of the app, but I have experienced issues with the SafeWalk feature in particular, which makes me more likely to just call somebody and stay on the phone while I walk than to use the SafeWalk feature,” she said.
Fake recalled one particular time where she was watching her friend walk from Steinman Center to the Brown Lot, and the SafeWalk was not updating her on her friend’s location for prolonged periods of time.
When the timer for the destination ran out, her friend’s phone almost called the police, even though the only problem was that her phone was not keeping her location up to date.
Because of situations such as these, Powell says that Campus Security is trying to identify “newer devices” that are more reliable than our current blue light system to try to slowly phase out the current system.
However, he is a firm believer in LiveSafe, saying that there is “at least one activation per day,” whereas the blue light system had “one activation so far [in the fall semester].”
Campus Security officers are constantly patrolling around the campus, and there is always someone at the dispatch station, but the blue light system is not going away completely in the foreseeable future.
As the College acquires funds, they plan on replacing the system with a better system similar to what other campuses have.
