{"id":12071,"date":"2016-06-15T06:21:10","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T13:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12071"},"modified":"2016-06-17T10:23:43","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T17:23:43","slug":"camosun-college-student-society-concerned-about-campus-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/06\/15\/camosun-college-student-society-concerned-about-campus-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun College Student Society concerned about campus security"},"content":{"rendered":"

The April Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) elections contained a referendum question asking if Camosun students were in support of a funding increase to the Walksafer program; the vote did not reach quorum, so funding was not changed.<\/p>\n

This is an issue for CCSS Student Services Coordinator Michael Glover. Glover, who runs the Walksafer program, says the funding was needed in order to provide the service without running a deficit. According to Glover, the Walksafer program provides much-needed safety to students on campus, as he feels security presence at Camosun is lacking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like insurance\u2014I hate paying for insurance, but if I need it, I\u2019ll sure be glad it\u2019s there,\u201d says Glover. \u201cUnfortunately, that probably describes the whole security problem here at Camosun overall. Anything security-wise is insurance, and hopefully we don\u2019t need it, but if we do we are really going to need it, and that\u2019s very hard to pay for during eight years of solid cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glover says funding for campus security used to come from parking fees, before Camosun parking was contracted out to Robbins Parking. Glover says that CCSS and Camosun had a verbal agreement that parking fees would go toward bike infrastructure, showers, and college safety, an agreement he claims the college is no longer honouring.<\/p>\n

\"Information<\/a>
Information about the recent Walksafer referendum (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYes, they had an agreement that was never written down; the student society did not write these things down,\u201d says Glover. \u201cBut they had agreed to do this, and so they are morally obligated to do that. They do not see that that way and have not taken responsibility for that moral obligation, which I would say that they have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun College interim Manager of Transportation and Parking Shannon Craig says that she can\u2019t comment on this agreement, as it predates her time working at the college.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s take it back and take all that revenue and hire CUPE [union] workers to be security and parking attendants,\u201d says Glover. \u201cThat way there will actually be some security, and, not only that, but security that the college hires, that they can manage, that would be superior to the guards that we were getting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun College Manager of Campus Security Byron Loucks says that a physical security presence is extremely important to the college, and says that when you have a budget you have to use it to the best of your ability.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s what we\u2019ve done,\u201d says Loucks. \u201cWe use our assigned budget to the best of our abilities in order to be able to provide the best security based on the funding we\u2019re provided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loucks says that he would support having more security on campus, but says that, again, it all comes down to budget issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was possible for us to have an improved security presence, of course I would support that,\u201d says Loucks. \u201cBut again that is a question with respect to administration and their budget allowances with respect to the security, and how that works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glover says that the college is focused too much on the wrong type of safety. (He also has concerns about the amount of security on campus; due to policy, Loucks could not comment on specifics.)<\/p>\n

\u201cTime and time again we see these guys being focused on earthquake security,\u201d says Glover, \u201cbuilding security, structural security, all of these physical things, [instead of] people security, like in terms of anti-harassment. And that is a problem for the student society. It is actually a problem for the whole college.\u201d<\/p>\n

But despite Glover\u2019s concerns, Loucks says that it is not the case that security is more focused on physical and structural issues than they are on the safety of the people on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say that we are building focused and not person focused, I don\u2019t even know what that means,\u201d says Loucks. \u201cSo, basically, if he\u2019s saying that we\u2019re more concerned about protecting a building than people, well, that is ridiculous. Because if there aren\u2019t people in the building, none of us have jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The April Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) elections contained a referendum question asking if Camosun students were in support of a funding increase to the Walksafer program; the vote did not reach quorum, so funding was not changed. This is an issue for CCSS Student Services Coordinator Michael Glover. Glover, who runs the Walksafer program, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-june-15-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12074,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071\/revisions\/12074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}