Personal safety has been a hot issue on campus since the Feb. 15 stabbing, and the Women’s Resource Center wants to show students how to kick crime in the face.
The WRC is hosting a self-defense presentation Monday to inform the UNM community how to stay safe. Summer Little, WRC program manager, said it’s in people’s best interest to know how to protect themselves.
“Safety is everybody’s responsibility. We all owe it to ourselves to do what we can to keep ourselves safe,” she said. “We can say that safety has kind of percolated to the top of our minds currently. It is in everybody’s consciousness because of the recent incidences.”
Student Kenzie Walters said she is considering attending the
presentation to learn how to protect herself.
“I really did used to feel safe on campus, but now I don’t,” she said. “I have African dance until 7:50 in Carlisle every night, and I guess the stabbing happened really close to there around that time. Since then, I’ve been kind of freaked out and I make sure I have someone walking with me wherever I go past 7.”
Students should get as much information on protection as possible, WRC Director Sandrea Gonzales said.
“Information is power, and all of us need whatever information we have to keep ourselves safe on this campus as well as in the world,” she said. “It never hurts to have more information. Anything new you can learn just makes you that much more informed about how to stay safe.”
Gonzales said the center is a refuge for women in need.
“We are still that place that people can come get a cup of tea, sit down, cry if they need to tell us what’s going on,” she said. “They don’t have to wait in line. They don’t have to sign a bunch of forms. They just have to come in and say, ‘I really need someone to listen to me.’ Our doors are open. Anybody can come in and we see them almost immediately.”
*Self-defense workshop
Monday
Noon-1 p.m.
SUB Lobo Room A*
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