The blue light system on the KSC campus is an emergency service station that, with the push of a button, contacts Campus Safety and sends them to your location.
Recently, it’s come to the attention of The Equinox that 12 blue lights on campus are out of service, according to Chris Buckley, director of Campus Safety — their locations spreading from Appian Way to the far off land of the Pondside 2 apartments.
The blue lights currently have a laminated sign with the Campus Safety number on it, instructing students to call campus safety. The Equinox feels this is counterintuitive to the point of urgency the blue lights are supposed to provide.
Campus Safety has yet to inform the student body of the broken blue lights and this has posed a serious issue that students may not even be aware of.
The safety of students remains to be a question from incoming students and their parents — during tours, the blue light system is a frequent talking point. Whether students will ever have to use the blue lights or not, they should know that coming to KSC means they can feel safe and comfortable.
There is an unfortunate and apparent risk that comes with being out and about at night. Students might have to be out at night for class, work, or athletics and should know that the system we were all told so much about during our first tours of KSC fully functions and has our back when it comes to it.
KSC is also a public campus that anyone in the area can access at any time, so there needs to be a working system that can get a rapid response from Campus Safety in the worst case scenario.
Some of the blue lights on parts of campus that are further away, including the Pondside 2 buildings and Winchester Lot A, are also out of commission, but should be the parts of campus that have high priority of blue light functionality because they are so far and they aren’t as well lit. Students who need help might not have the time to take out their phone and punch in the Campus Safety phone number in an emergency. In fact, it may be easier to dial 9-1-1. In the age of smartphones, battery life can be quickly drained, the service is spotty and the overall reliability jumps ship to fit perfectly in with Murphy’s Law. The blue lights are supposed to be consistent and dependable but now, with a dozen of them being out, what are students supposed to do?
The Equinox thinks there are just too many risks in the world for our emergency blue light system to not work. There are always going to be possibilities of harm to students and the KSC community, and we need the blue lights to actually work in order for us to feel safer.
We hope going forward that Campus Safety will prioritize the ensured and continual function of the blue lights, and will notify the student body if one does go out of commission. There can’t be any faltering in the campus safety system if we are going to live and learn comfortably on campus.
