Report suggests updates to dated campus security systems

Photoshoots like this one have been offered in the past, one of which featured junior communication and digital studies major Eli Osborne.

“You’re a little bit of a celebrity,” said Osborne, who claims he has been approached 30–40 times about being “the website guy” after appearing on the UMW website.

Some student participants were excited at the prospect of being featured in promotional materials.

“I was most certainly told about where my pictures might be and the ones that really stuck to me were billboards and on the sides of buses,” said Marshall. “That had topped the cake for me!”

Though Executive Director of University Communications Amy Jessee said students are told that their photos may be used for promotional materials, marketing efforts and productions, some students say they were not told

SEE BRANDING PAGE 6

Although not expected to be released by the school, the University recently conducted an assessment of campus security and produced a report called “UMW Blue Light Study,” acknowledging that the system has aged and urging the school to do a massive renovation and upgrade of the system. The assessment was intended to be used to advise the university on campus security measures.

There are a total of 217 telephone lines on UMW’s campus—200 located on the Fredericksburg campus, 12 at the Stafford campus and five at Dahlgren—that cost about $25,000 to maintain annually. The report recommends moving and/or removing blue lights from areas that are over-saturated and installing the systems in other, more vulnerable parts of campus while also accommodating for the budget. The committee behind the report identified these areas, and the report notes that “care was taken to craft a plan of blue light locations that would maximize access, with fewer blue light locations,” which aims to save $6,888 annually.

The report acknowledges that the system is aging since the emergency phone system is “well over two decades old,” though in the introduction section of the draft, the committee was unable to determine when the blue light phone system was first installed on campus, even after extensive research. Upgrades are necessary, it says, to continue to ensure and promote security on campus.

With the blue light system currently installed on campus, there were a total of 844 entries—nine calls pertaining to an emergency or urgent situation, 31 requests for access into buildings after hours, 481 calls were false calls that were verifiable from camera view and contact with the caller—from May 1, 2015 to May 1, 2019. The rest involved testing, malfunctions or situations in which there was no emergency present.