After a non-affiliated man living in an SMU residence hall was arrested in April, administration and police say no new security policies will be implemented for the fall because it was an isolated incident.
Twenty-three-year-old Andy Hicken lived with a friend in Shuttles Hall for four months. He made friends with the residents, attended hall meetings and played on an intramural team, then shocked his new friends when he was arrested on charges for outstanding felony theft in Franklin County, Texas.
In refrence to Hicken, Jenna Hyatt, associate director of Residence Life and Student Housing said, “Everything is a learning experience.”
“We will use that situation as a case study for resident assistant staff training in August. But hear me loud and clear, [students] only have one side of the story. There’s much more to it.”
Administration and police are trying to teach students safety in residence halls and on campus by stressing the importance of awareness: Who’s going in the halls and who really lives there?
Currently, residence halls have a card access system that allows students into the hall they live in. Some students believe the problem is not with the system but with the students.
“The main problem is random people getting into the dorms. If a person standing outside the door looks young, a resident assumes they are a student and will hold the door open for them.” senior Melinda Standfield said.
In order to help students become more protective of where they live, RLSH Administration developed a program called Gotcha. When a resident leaves the door to their room propped open, their RA will post a ‘Gotcha’ sign on it to indicate that a person could have gone into the room and stolen the resident’s belongings.
“[Gotcha] is an awareness program, but the security is not fool-proof,” Hyatt said. “We want folks to realize they have a responsibility to themselves and to their neighbors concerning their safety. [They] have to look out for each other.”
SMU Police Lt. Enrique Jemmott wants residents to be police’s eyes and ears. He urges students to call the police when they see someone they don’t recognize walking through the resident halls or waiting outside. Jemmott said students tend to rationalize when they see a stranger and will say things to themselves like, “Oh, that guy’s waiting for his girlfriend,” or “He must live on a different floor than me.”
Police say residents should not let people in behind them if they don’t have access to that dorm. According to police, SMU is safer than most campuses because it offers police escort services, extra officers and programs that teach protection and prevention.
Unfortunately, students often wait until something happens to their property or themselves before they begin practicing safety precautions.
“It concerns me that someone like [Andy Hicken] could live in the residence hall for so long. They took his word, and no one wanted to find out whom he really was. I would want to know why [a non-resident] was staying there,” Standfield said.
