UMass Amherst will release a report Wednesday afternoon detailing how secure the university’s residence halls are and what can be done to make them more secure.
The university hired an outside consultant following the gang rape last year of a woman in her dorm room.
Despite that case, students seem to agree that the residence halls are safe.
“I feel like it’s still pretty safe here, even though a couple of things have happened in the past,” Sophomore Uka Opara says. “But in my opinion, I feel like it’s not that bad. Everyone just has to be smart, and I think everything will be okay.”
During the evenings, each residence hall has a monitor who checks student IDs and registers guests. The suspects in last year’s rape are believed to have gotten around the system. But Sophomore Whitney Carpenter thinks the process mostly works.
“I think it’s a good system. I work at the Center for Women and Community, so I know that stuff does happen, but I do feel safe personally,” Carpenter says.
But another student, Jenna Murray, says although she feels safe, she wishes the signing-in system was more thorough.
UMass residence halls house 13,000 students in 51 buildings.
A UMass spokesperson says the consultant’s report cost the university just over $40,000.
New England Public Radio’s Brianda Reyes reported and wrote this story.