UNM is responding to the Feb. 15 student attack by holding a campus safety walk tonight.
Students will meet in front of the Saggio’s in the SUB at 6 p.m.
There will be a half-hour introduction featuring a speech by Eliseo “Cheo” Torres, vice president of Student Affairs. ASUNM Vice President Mike Westervelt, who was in the classroom that the slashing victim walked into, will also give a speech at the event.
Westervelt said the people who go on the walk will carry checklists and mark problems they find. He said the University will respond to the problems that students discover within 30 days.
“They are looking to get results and make changes to the problems that are already there, like replacing light bulbs and cutting back brush,” he said. “The University is going to look into all the problems that are laid out by the people who go on the walk.”
ASUNM Senator Zoila Alvarez said the event, which was organized by Torres, will improve campus security.
“I think that this walk is very important because we have administrators doing it with us, which I think makes a very big difference because then the administrators actually walk the walk and go out and tour the campus alongside students,” she said. “So I think this is a really good move on Dr. Torres’ office’s part.”
She said ASUNM was planning its own meet-and-greet safety-awareness event before they learned Torres was planning the safety walk.
“When we found out that Cheo was doing this, we moved back our event — the meet and greet — so that the senators could attend the walk,” she said.
Torres was unavailable for comment, but Public Affairs Representative for Student Affairs, Dorene DiNaro, said Torres got the idea for the walk from an old fraternity tradition.
“It used to be something the Greeks would do — I don’t know how many years ago, — and it just sort of stopped happening,” she said. And now with the stabbing, Cheo decided that we really need to change this, start doing it again and make some changes.”
DiNaro said 150 people have signed up for the event through Facebook.
“We’re actually expecting a pretty big turnout,” she said. “I don’t know if they’ll all actually show up, but there’s been quite an interest in it, and we’ve got some positive feedback on it.”
Alvarez said problems on campus include dark areas and a lack of security patrols.
“I think that one of the things that needs to be improved on campus safety is definitely patrol. I know the campus has already made a move towards getting more walking patrol on the campus,” she said.
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DiNaro said the University will evaluate the students’ checklists and make improvements based on suggestions provided by the walkers.
“It will go back to the Safety and Risk (Services) Department, and they’re going to put together a report, and they’ll start fixing things, of course,” she said. “They want to see what the results are first. Then they’ll make those decisions. They definitely do want to fix things, but they have to see the report first.”
Alvarez said the walk will help the administration focus on what specific things need to be improved.
“I think that having the safety walk is vital to the campus because you can spot out the problem areas,” she said. “Not necessarily just spending money all over campus, but just on the things that really need it.”
On Feb. 15, a UNM student was stabbed in the neck by an unknown assailant. The investigation is ongoing, according to UNMPD Spokesman Robert Haarhues. Also, the victim is still hospitalized but was last said to be in “satisfactory” condition.
