The issues of gun control and public safety on campus have been spotlighted by Portland State’s student government this year, and now PSU students have made their opinions known.
The results of the Associated Students of Portland State University campus safety survey were released recently.
The goal of the survey was to “gain a holistic view of how students feel about campus safety,” the report stated.
According to the study, students are still divided on the contentious issue of whether PSU should have its own sworn police force, with 34 percent of respondents answering “strongly disagree” or “disagree” and 36 percent responding “strongly agree” or “agree.”
Students were almost equally divided on the issue of whether Campus Public Safety officers should be armed.
“Armed campus safety officers are completely superfluous to the type of…
crime at Portland State. We have a problem with sexual assault, not with gun crime,” said one anonymous respondent in the survey comments section.
The survey showed that while a majority of students agreed with the statement “I feel safe on campus,” most students are unaware of what CPSO does and how to reach them.
Respondents also said they wanted more blue light emergency phones to be installed on campus and more student oversight of CPSO.
Based on these results, ASPSU has submitted recommendations to the administration for areas of improvement. ASPSU did not create recommendations about a sworn police force or arming CPSO officers because there was no clear consensus among students.
“The recommendations are pretty firmly based on the results of the survey,” ASPSU Legislative Affairs Director David Coburn said.
Coburn, who worked with ASPSU President Tiffany Dollar on the project, said the recommendations are a series of small steps rather than drastic changes.
CPSO Director Phil Zerzan is a strong advocate of a sworn police force on campus. While noting that the issue is a very divisive one, Zerzan said the step is necessary due to the complexity of policing an urban campus.
“There are significant service gaps,” Zerzan said.
According to Zerzan, PSU is the only school out of other comparable urban schools that doesn’t have a sworn police force.
However, ASPSU believes it would be better to enact a series of smaller changes before graduating to such big ones.
“There are a lot of intermediate steps before that,” Coburn said of Zerzan’s suggestion.
One step would be creating an outreach and awareness campaign so students would be more informed about CPSO. The report recommended that CPSO be present at orientations and suggested that CPSO’s contact information be displayed more visibly on campus.
ASPSU also recommended that more blue light emergency phones be installed on the campus. Forty-four percent of survey respondents answered “strongly disagree” or “disagree” to the statement “There are enough blue light phones on campus.” A mere 18 percent answered “strongly agree” or “agree.”
Fifty-two percent of respondents thought students should have some oversight over CPSO. In response to this, ASPSU proposed the creation of a permanent advisory board that would holistically evaluate campus safety.
The advisory board would have a diverse membership made up of administration officials, campus service staff members and student representatives, including ASPSU officers, representatives from several student resource centers and a student-at-large representative. Coburn says the involvement of students in campus security advising would help the PSU student body build their trust in CPSO.
The survey was conducted during winter term, with a total of 2,312 students surveyed. The full report can be found on the ASPSU website at aspsu.pdx.edu.