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[MUSIC PLAYING] APRIL OVERSTREET: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for joining us for our family orientation session this afternoon. My name is April Overstreet. I'm the Interim Director of New Student Programs, and this is our campus safety session. So again, thank you for spending some time with us this afternoon.
I am joined by some of my campus colleagues to be able to share some of their perspectives about safety here on campus. And they're going to give you some overviews about how their office supports our students, whether they're living here on campus or off campus, and be able to provide information about resources.
So our presenters today are Mary Beth Grant from the Dean of Students Office, Anthony Bellamy from Cornell Police Department, and Abby Priehs from Housing and Residential Life. So please join me in welcoming our panelists. And Mary Beth is going to start us off.
MARY BETH GRANT: Thanks so much, April. And I just really want to start off by thanking my colleagues. April, Tony, and Abby have all been just amazing, together with their departments, to get this orientation going. So let's give it up for them.
[APPLAUSE]
Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm so happy. I love this time of year when we have students, both returning students and new students to campus, families, parents, guardians, siblings, and everybody. There's just an energy in the air. You are why we are here.
I come to you as a Cornell alumna. I graduated from the law school in '88. I also come to you with 22 years as a student affairs professional here at Cornell. I have spent my entire student affairs life at Cornell. So believe me when I tell you that my blood runs Cornell Big Red.
[APPLAUSE]
I also come to you as a parent. My husband and I-- he's sitting over there. I met him at Cornell, too-- another fun fact. We have two adult children who have both gone to different institutions-- wanted to get out of town. But I know what it feels like to sit in the metaphoric parent chair.
And I'm with you. There are all kinds of emotions. Embrace them. They're all going to be there, and it's fine.
And we will never take the place of parents. We don't even try. But we have been around the block. And we have thought about different things that can help your children-- our students, your children-- as they experience all the experiences at Cornell.
So if this particular talk about campus safety-- if there's something that happens to your student or their friend or somebody that they don't even know, we've got the experience to be able to help them through that. So I'll talk about the types of campus safety things that we do within the Dean of Students Office, and then my colleagues will talk about their areas.
So there are two different ways that the Dean of Students Office works around campus safety issues. One is a brand-new Community Response Team, and the second is an office that's been here for a long time but has recently been revamped and renamed, and that's called the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.
So we'll start with the Community Response Team. So the Community Response Team is brand-new. It started in April, but really, this fall is the first time that it will be fully engaged. And it is specifically in response to trying to rethink and reimagine campus safety issues.
We all went through quite a reckoning as a nation when Mr. Floyd died. But we have been thinking already at Cornell about do we always need our most highly-trained individuals to help students who are having really lower-level kinds of issues.
So this team works with the allies that you'll see on the screen-- Cornell Health, residential programs, our campus police-- to try to provide help and assistance to students who don't need an armed police officer with highly skilled things. They need a support person, help to get to-- to de-escalate a problem, or help to get to a warm handoff to our counseling center. Some of you were at the last session on wellness, and you would have learned about that.
So let's talk about some of the ways that our community support responders can help. So this is a list of all different kinds of things that the community response coordinators will do. Now, they work only in residential housing. So they're housed on North Campus, but they'll work with students who live in the North Campus residences, the South Campus residences, the ones on West, as well as university-owned fraternities, as well as things like the co-op-- so any housing that's owned by the University.
And the types of things they do are more of a social work nature than a police intervention. Excuse me. So for example, take the second bullet. I'm not going to go through each one, but I'll just give you a couple of different examples.
Suppose there's a conflict. They're going to be able to help de-escalate it. Looking at the second bullet, suppose a student had a bad day. They failed a test for the first time. They're already feeling homesick. They're already questioning their sense of belonging here-- the types of things that all of us go through at some point in our lives and is normal, and it can be hard.
And they're just feeling glum. And they come home, and their roommate has had a fabulous day and aced a test that they thought they were going to fail and is engaging in illegal substances. And that's not something that they had agreed to in advance.
Big conflict ensues. That would be a great opportunity to have a community response coordinator come and say, look, y'all need to sort this out. Let's get through the night. Let's make sure that everybody has their needs met. Let's make everybody is being considerate of each other. That's one type of example.
Or maybe there's some sort of ambulance call. Maybe somebody fell in the shower and broke their leg, but the rest of the hall doesn't know what happened. All they know is that there's a lot of people hanging around and there's something going on.
Well, that might be a situation where the community response coordinators will go and help keep order, help make sure people aren't feeling stressed out, see if anybody is being triggered, because sometimes an ambulance means one thing to somebody and something different to someone else. So that's also a way that they can help in the larger community. And there would also be residence life staff there, but it's an extra layer of support.
Or maybe it's working coordination with Cornell Police and the EMS when there's something that's even more serious. So we're not an either/or thing when you think back to all the resources or the other partners. We're all working together, really trying to provide seamless support around campus health and safety.
This is how to get in touch with the Community Response Team. Anybody is able to do that, whether it's a student, somebody from the residence hall. Sometimes it'll come through the police. The easiest way is through Cornell Police.
But we also know that sometimes people don't want to call the police number to access a nonpolice response. So there's also a direct number on there. And then, for nonemergencies, there's an online link for if it's not an emergency.
This does not replace-- if there's truly an emergency, it does not replace that. That needs to go to the police, who have the most training in emergency types of things.
So then the next office is the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. It's a mouthful, but it's really important to think about that type of information that that title gives. So the student conduct piece of it, one thinks about enforcing the rules-- our student code of conduct. There's the enforcement component. And the community standards piece is the educational response to make sure that people understand, from an ethical, moral point of view, how do we create a campus where everyone is getting along, feeling included, making sure that we have high standards of ethics?
And this is the role. They engage community members about the values. They focus on the holistic development of students as well as enforcing the student code.
One of the things that is very different-- and I mentioned before that the process has changed as well as the name change. But the philosophy has also changed to be more of a restorative process. So what does that mean?
It means that instead of just-- say the hypothetical is that somebody steals a laptop out of a computer-- steals a laptop out of a library. A laptop is a computer. But somebody leaves their laptop on the library desk, and somebody else comes and takes it. Well, there's the accountability piece, where the person who engages in the theft might go through a criminal justice process or might have to somehow pay back the person who lost the laptop, make sure that they have their laptop back.
But there's also a restorative piece. And the restorative piece is to really help the responding party understand how the complaining party has been harmed. So it's not just the person lost a piece of property.
They lost their ability to study properly that night and failed the test the next day. Or they weren't able to complete an assignment, and that caused them extra stress. Or they had to just spend extra time in a process, either in student conduct or with the police, and took extra time away.
Or the restoration piece of it might be-- the restorative piece of it might be-- that the responding party has some food insecurity and was trying to get a little extra income. And we can help the person come up with different sources of income that are legal. So we're really looking holistically at the whole situation, both parties involved, as well as the community.
Our colleague in that office has used the expression free, fair, restorative, educational, and equitable. So that really sums that up. So that's how the Dean of Students Office can work with safety on campus. And now I'll turn it over to my colleague from the police, Deputy Chief Anthony Bellamy.
[APPLAUSE]
ANTHONY BELLAMY: Good afternoon. Whoa, that's a little loud, aren't I? Good afternoon, everybody. Sorry. I'm excited to see y'all. I'm excited to be here.
Again, my name is Anthony Bellamy. I'm deputy chief of the Cornell University Police Department. I've been here at Cornell for 17 years. I came in as a patrol officer, went into investigations, got to sergeant, spent five years on night shift as a supervisor as a sergeant, and then went to [INAUDIBLE] as a lieutenant. And so two years ago, I got promoted to deputy chief.
So I've seen the gamut of the university. I've seen the gamut of our department and understand what safety needs our partners here and our community needs-- students, what they need, what the staff needs, what the faculty needs. And that's what we're here for.
But before going any further, what I want to say is I want everybody-- students and parents, take out your phones. Do it right now. Students, you probably won't be allowed to do this in class. Take your phones out now. I want you to give you our phone number. 607 area code, 255-1111. That's 607-255-1111.
And what we do-- why I want you to have that number now is just in case you need a resource, in case you have a question, if you can't find something on the university website and need some guidance on something, and more importantly, you need assistance. Because our mission here, as you can see on the slide, is service. That's what we believe in. You see "serve and protect" on police cars. You don't see that on any of our cars. What you see-- what we provide is a service to our students.
We understand that the students come from different areas, different walks of life, throughout the country, throughout the world, and have a different perception and different ideas of law enforcement and how their community is being policed. And we want everyone to understand that we serve our community on how you feel we need to-- how you need to be policed.
Another thing we're committed to is diversity-- fair, impartial, antiracist policing. As we know, throughout the country, law enforcement had to make some changes, some self-adjustments, because of how some other people and some other places-- not here-- how they handled themselves. And we looked at that and took it as a learning lesson, took it how law enforcement can be better.
That's why we supported, as MB said, the Community Response Team, which will be a new endeavor. They invited me to the table, which is an important communication. Communication-- we got invited to the table. Hey, let's discuss this. Let's discuss how we can do this, how best to serve our community.
And that's what the Crisis Response Team-- Community Response Team is. We've heard from the students. We've heard from staff. We've heard from faculty. So we think, at times, a non-law enforcement presence is best to serve our community. And we agree with that concept.
And we're going to work along with that because sometimes, quite frankly, a uniform is not needed at an incident. An officer with a gun sometimes is not needed at an incident and may escalate an incident, and we understand that. And we want to support our students the best way ever because in the end, what we're looking for is that, students, when they leave here in four years or six years, to be out in Schoellkopf Field and walk down-- and the parents there as well-- and see them at graduation.
So we put it all together by meeting community expectations. We see people. We put people first. We try to understand each other's needs, understand what's in front of us, and deal with the person in front of us-- not worry about what happened last time, what our experiences may be, but what it looks like this time in front of us.
Policy-- make sure that our policies are up to snuff, meet community standards and expectations, as well as meeting our employees' expectations, and not only that, that the employees and officers understand and know policy, professionalism.
I remind people, and I remind the athletes-- I remind everybody here at Cornell who travels-- my patch says Cornell University. You have the same responsibility as I have to represent the university in the best manner possible. And that's what I tell our officers when they go out every day, that you need to be professional. Treat others how you expect to be treated yourself. And so we need that dialogue, we have that dialogue, and we create that atmosphere every single day.
The reimaging-- here at Cornell, we have a public safety advisory committee that's made up of faculty, staff, students, that devises, collaborates, gives Cornell-- gives us, the police department, some inside information on how we should police the community or if we should change or amend the way we do things. Also, not only that, the committee also pats us on the back. It says, you're doing the right thing. Keep it up.
It's required under the New York state educational law-- not mandated like municipalities have been mandated to do one thing in New York state, but we're not under those mandates because we're a private law enforcement agency. But there's another law in the educational law that requires us to do this. We spend a lot of time working with the PSAC committee, and it's benefited all of us, what they're doing.
So some resources-- for Cornell Police, that's what we do. We have a list of resources. You can call us. We make sure we get the right people for the right situation every time.
Our website has a several resources if you go to it. Cornell University Emergency Management, Cornell Environmental Health-- those websites also provide important information for safety resources.
The Facebook page-- the chief monitors the Facebook page daily. He's the one that keeps the information up. If you want to learn more information or hear about something, generally, he'll put it out on the Facebook page.
The Rave Guardian app-- that's another thing that you can download. The university has funded, at no cost to the student or the family, the Rave Guardian app. We have safety tips on there. With the Rave Guardian app, we have virtual escorts.
So what that is, you can have the university-- us-- follow you as an escort or have a family or friend follow you as an escort. And what that does is it doesn't give up your geofile location. It doesn't give up where you are. You set a timer-- say, for 10 minutes, because most of the time, you're going to be walking from the library, I hope, right? Students, from the library?
[LAUGHTER]
At 2:00 AM because you've been studying, and they kicked you out of the Olin Library and told you to get back to your dorm room. It's a walk to North Campus. Set the timer for that walk, and you're good to go.
Now, at the end of your walk, you select that timer and say-- and because you're back, it clears you. However, if that timer goes off, and you haven't said it and said you've been there, that you've got to your location, it sends us a message, a text message, on our public safety dispatch area.
And what happens is they look at it. They call. They text. Then they call. And if we have no answer overall, then we're going to send someone to try to find to make sure you're OK.
And it happens at times, where people are tired from studying, and they get back to the room, and then they forget to hit the safety timer. And then we go in and make sure they're OK. Nothing wrong with that.
Like I said, you can text. If you're somewhere on campus and you see something going on, you can easily send a text to us and respond to that. And our dispatchers have-- that comes up on their board in front of them, and it works great.
As far as family and friends as the escorts, you can set a family member to that, and it works the same way. This family member may get a message saying that you didn't re-do the safety timer. Then they'll try to call you.
My colleague here will discuss in a little bit about setting it up and speaking to your parents. A lot of times, we do get calls from parents saying they haven't heard from their student, and we use several avenues to try to reach out to you. Sometimes it's an email. Sometimes it's a text message. Sometimes it's a phone call. Sometimes it's our partners at Res Life who is going to come see you to make sure that you're OK.
The bottom line is, like I said, we want everybody to end up on Schoellkopf Field once you're done here.
Along with Blue Lights on campus-- we have several Blue Lights all over campus. I'm sure you've seen them. They're still in use. Please don't use them to order pizza or a ride home. People have times have done that. People have called and asked for assistance, and we go and check on them. Each button time it's activated, we go and check it out. Whether it's in an elevator, whether it's on the street, we go and check it out each and every time that it's activated.
You will see officers also going to push those buttons because they get checked monthly. If that phone wasn't activated-- that Blue Light phone was not activated-- we go check it every month to be sure it's still working. We have our Public Safety Dispatch. Again, there's a number for you to write down, and that's important.
So for me, I don't know if I missed anything from what Dave went over. I never went back to the podium. But questions, and I'll pass it on to my colleague from Res Life, Abby. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
ABBY PRIEHS: Hello, everyone. My name is Abby Priehs. I am the Director of Residential Life. I first have to apologize for my attire. My colleagues brought it. They are dressed to the nines. I am, however, here to help with move-in. So this is my attire today. Also, Mother Nature decided that she was going to rain every single day while we have been here so far.
Also, this campus has made me realize, more than the other six institutions that I have worked at, that I am really out of shape. So every day we've been walking around here, I was like, oh, goodness, OK. So I'm a little sweaty still.
All right. So we're going to talk about shared safety in the residence hall. And we call it shared responsibility because really what we want to emphasize is it's everyone's responsibility, not only our staff, but also the students. And we really want to talk about why that is and what particular components are everyone's responsibility, both our staff and our students, and what that looks like between roommates and suitemates and so forth. And we're going to get into those points and talk about that together today.
Today, starting, we're going to talk about the fact that all these things will be shared with the residents in the halls and their families. And so all these points will be shared extensively. But we're going to cover some of the points together.
We do have regular fire alarm testing in the hall on a regular basis, as I said. And we also have a weekly carbon monoxide testing in the townhouses because of their unique setup. And so that happens.
We also really want to hit home the point that we do not want the smoke detectors covered in any way, shape, or form, because they are there for what they're supposed to do. Also, the sprinkler heads-- we really ask that students do not, under any circumstance, hang anything, play with, hit it, whatever. For some reason, they look like very convenient things to hang things off of. Anybody want to know why we don't want to do that? Yes, anybody.
Yes. It will totally set the sprinklers off. And this fun thing that happens is that in the movies, we think that it comes out as very beautiful, clear water. It does not. And because I want students to continue to have friends at Cornell University, we want to make sure that they don't set those off.
There's this very little small red tube that is very fragile that is set there to be reactive to the fact that there's heat, smoke, whatever, and it will set it off. And it will ruin all things in the room, including roommates or suitemates. And so we ask students not to hang things, hit things, throw a football, basketball, hit it.
I was at one institution where surfing was very common. A student hit it with a surfboard. So we really want to make sure that we don't do anything to set off the sprinkler heads and make them angry.
One thing with access to our buildings-- they're very secure. You cannot have access to the buildings unless you're supposed to be there. And so there are about two to three secure points to get into the building. All exterior doors are accessible, again, only to our residents.
There, of course, are the suite doors. The room doors will all have hard key access to them. And we really want to emphasize that if a student loses a key that we ask that they report it immediately.
Some students are like, ah, I bet I can find it someday in a pair of pants. I don't know where those pants are-- maybe in the laundry, maybe somewhere. I'm not really exactly sure. I think I remember having it last week. I'll just ask my roommate to continue to let me in. Don't do that. Please don't do that.
We really want you to tell us if you lost your key because we want to make sure-- or I could just leave it open every day because I really trust the people on my floor to continue just to let me close my door, and I'll just let myself in-- don't do that. Tell us that you lost your key. We will get you a new one. We'll get you a new core.
It's not a big deal. You are not the first person at Cornell University to lose their key. We have full-time locksmiths. That's their job.
All right. Before I talk about the discussion between roommates and suitemates about access, we have something called tailgating or piggybacking. You're probably going to see some signs on our doors about that. We don't want that to happen.
What that means is that you see someone and you're trying to be really nice and you're like, oh, hey, you live here with me. I don't remember seeing you before. But let me just open the door and let you in. Yeah, we don't want you to do that.
We want everybody to use their Cornell ID, put it up to the little pad, and then everyone who's supposed to live there will be let in. We want them to do that, too-- every single person-- so that we know that the people who are supposed to live there actually live there.
And so when you tailgate, basically, you sneak in behind that person. So we want to make sure that people are not doing that. So it's OK. It's not impolite. It's not rude. You can just kind of shut the door behind you and be like, you got to use your card, too.
And again, if you lost yours, you can get a replacement. And we can do that as well. We can issue you a temp one until you get a new ID.
When we go back to the discussion between roommates and suitemates, it's really important to talk about your access and what's OK and what's not OK. Some of the buildings have common area bathrooms. And it'll be like I'm just going to jet down the hallway. I'm going to go use it. I'll be right back. We're going to leave the door open.
Now, if no one's in the room, we would say that's not really a super good idea. Now, if someone's in the room, that's totally fine. But if I'm going to go down the hallway for two seconds, my roommate also-- ah, but we're just going to-- I'm going to be down there for two seconds, and someone just walks by the room and my wallet is sitting on the dresser, the deputy chief would tell me that is a really good way to lose all your stuff.
Now, also, we would tell you it's a really good idea to talk to your roommate or your suitemates about the fact that you probably don't want to bring everything that you have that's super valuable. Now, I don't have a tennis diamond bracelet, but maybe you do. And maybe Grandmother's pearls are really important to you, and you wanted to bring them to Cornell. But maybe it's a good idea to take them home today because those are the kinds of things that could be easily taken.
Now, while we have a very super, super safe campus, those are the kinds of things that people just can easily take. And we really want to make sure that you are keeping them in secure places in your room.
Now, in terms of laptops and different kinds of things that end up kind of going off, you can also talk to CUPD about finding out the kinds of things that can be the best mechanisms to secure those in your rooms. And as Deputy Chief Bellamy already said, they love to get questions like that. And you can call them and say, hey, I'm looking to secure something in my room. What are some good mechanisms to do that?
And they can ask-- you can ask them. Serial numbers on them are also other ways to do that so that you know all the things in your room that you have so that you can go back and make sure they're really secure.
But the number one thing to do is to have a good discussion with your roommate. I just want to leave the door open for two seconds. But one thing you want to do-- if they're going to run to the hallway and you're going to go to class, and they went to the bathroom with all their stuff, and they only brought a towel, without their key, that's probably not the best thing to do, because they come back, and now they're only in a hallway with their towel, and they can't get back into the room. Don't do that to them.
Again, I really want you to have friends at Cornell University. Good things to think about, because some people come from places where they don't lock their doors at night. Maybe they have a driveway where they have a car and they don't lock it.
And that's totally fine. Other people are like, of course you do that. But maybe in other places, they don't-- so good things to think about and having those discussions with your roommates beforehand.
We have talked about this before, and Deputy Chief mentioned this. We have staff on 24/7. We are in the halls. We have resident advisors who are very highly trained. These are students, staff, who have just been in training, and then we went right into move-in.
They are highly trained on our resources on campus. They are here. You probably got to meet some of them already. Did anybody get to meet their RA today? Maybe some? No, not yet? Yay, OK, good.
So they really are excited to welcome you. Their job is to be a resource. And so if you have things that you want to know about, they'll give you some kind of-- or they'll find it out for you and then refer you to resources we have on this campus, because we have so many of them and people who are so excited to be able to help you.
And so one of the things that we do, though, is that we have staff who are here all the time, 24/7, similar to CUPD. We don't do the same kind of work. But we definitely can refer you to what we can provide as a resource. We also have full-time staff who serve as master's-level live-in staff. They live in the halls with our staff and can also assist.
One thing that happens quite frequently, when we leave you all today and families go off and do their thing and they're so excited for their student to have this experience, is that they forget to have one very important conversation-- communication. And when I talk about communication, what I mean by that is students are really excited. They're like, I'm probably going to talk to my family, like, maybe once a week, maybe once every two weeks. And then families are like, oh, no, no, I meant three or four times a day. And this student was like, no, that wasn't happening.
So what then happens is that family was like, oh, I thought something happened to you. And what I'm going to do now is call the police because I thought you were somewhere scary. And the student was like, I was taking a nap, Mom, I went to class, or I went to Starbucks and got a coffee. I am fine.
So what they do is they either call CUPD or they call the halls, and they're super worried. So what I ask you to do is today, after you leave us, you figure out the best communication plan between all of you. So it's like, OK, every Tuesday at 9:00 PM, we're going to check in, or twice a day or three times a week, whatever you all decide is best for you. We're going to text. We're going to Insta. We're going to Twitter. I don't care what it is.
You all decide what is best for you about when you're going to communicate, because your family will worry about you. They want to know that you are safe and OK because this is hard stuff for them.
How many of our families in here, this is your first student going to college? OK, good. I was the first going to college. Back in the day, we only had answering machines.
And my mother left me a message and said, it has now been two weeks. I have not heard from you. If you do not call me right now, I'm calling university police.
And I said, oh, hi, Mom. It's me. I'm fine. I just really love college a lot. I will call you.
And she was like, thank you so much. Don't you ever do that to me again. I was like, OK, all right. Never again.
Now we have students connected to their families in much different ways. So make sure you have a communication plan. Figure it out, because we know you're probably totally fine and you're having the time of your life because Cornell University is amazing. Am I right? Yes.
But we really want to make sure that you know you're OK, because we had the number of times where we have to go up to your door, knock on it, and be like, your mom called five times today. If you don't call her right now, I really-- it's not OK. I was taking a nap. I'm sure you were. Can you please call your mom? Yeah, no problem. So please do that for me today, OK?
We do have time for some questions. Is that right, April? All right, awesome. Thank you all so much.
[APPLAUSE]
APRIL OVERSTREET: We do have some time for questions. If you have a question, just raise your hand. I'll be happy to bring the microphone to you. I see one there in the back.
AUDIENCE: So being an international student, my daughter would be having a passport. What do you think is the best place to store that because it's a very important document?
ABBY PRIEHS: I couldn't hear it. I'm sorry.
APRIL OVERSTREET: Dean, did you hear the question?
ABBY PRIEHS: I didn't hear.
ANTHONY BELLAMY: I didn't hear the question.
ABBY PRIEHS: I'm sorry.
APRIL OVERSTREET: I'm sorry. Yeah, so the question was his daughter's an international student and has a passport. What is the safest place to store the passport?
ABBY PRIEHS: You can answer. It doesn't matter either way. So there's several places you can try to do that, and Deputy Chief can tell you, too. Students will have everything from a locked box in their room-- a locked safety box in their room. They use a variety of different ways that they've chosen to keep that in their room, some safe place in the room that only they know about. Yeah, you can talk about those.
ANTHONY BELLAMY: Yeah, that's correct. So like you said, don't carry it on their person if they don't need it. And be sure it's in a secure location in the residence hall, and also, for them to let you know or another parent know where that location is.
MARY BETH GRANT: You could also use something like a bank safety deposit box if you're really worried.
APRIL OVERSTREET: All right, another question here in the back. I'm getting my exercise today. It's good.
AUDIENCE: So it's a two-part question, but it's related. The Rave app is for students to be able to communicate with the crisis team and the police department. Is that also an app that parents should download? Is there any functionality for parents to have that app?
And as related to that, is there any-- or is it the Rave app that lets parents know should there ever be a lockdown on campus, an emergency situation on campus? My other daughter is at a different school, and we have an alert system that notifies us right away if there's a problem on campus. So are those-- is that the Rave app? Or if it's not, is there a different app?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: So with the Rave Guardian app, because it's geofenced here for the university, there's certain information that you will not receive. But you can be the student's friend or family so that if they do activate a safety timer and have you there, that you'll be notified if they got to the location they needed. And you'll be notified, and their location shown, if they didn't deactivate the safety timer.
So their location is not shown unless they don't deactivate the safety timer. So that's one thing. And it's geofenced. So some resources you will not see, because it's geofenced. And you're not a member of the Cornell community per se as far as having the net ID.
As far as emergency communications, our emergency management website here at the university does allow for parents to sign up and receive emergency notifications and things that go out. Be aware, however-- and we've received this in the past-- that when something happens at 2:30 in the morning, usually we get calls of how come I was notified? Why are you telling me this? And it's because they've signed up and forgot they'd signed up. But yeah, so that is possible.
AUDIENCE: Where do we sign up for that?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: It's the emergency management website. And I'll give it to you after the presentation.
APRIL OVERSTREET: Question? Yes.
AUDIENCE: If we set up the safety timer on the Rave Guardian app and then our phone dies, does the timer still go off or no?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: Say that again? I didn't hear you.
AUDIENCE: If we set up the timer on the Rave app, but then our phone dies, does the timer still go off or no?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: So the timer will go off. And what will happen is we'll get the last location if your phone goes dead, because you're still-- we're going to get a geofence of that. With our phones, what we learned is if it still has enough battery left where it'll still follow some of that to give us a location.
And the timer will go off, and it'll give your name and information. So that'll allow us still to contact you, whether via text, phone, or we go try to send you an email, or we go find where you're residing and go from there. So yes, it still will activate.
MARY BETH GRANT: While the last person was asking a question, I also googled the emergency site. It's emergency.cornell.edu.
APRIL OVERSTREET: Thank you, Mary Beth. Can you say that one more time?
MARY BETH GRANT: Emergency.cornell.edu.
APRIL OVERSTREET: Thank you. Other questions?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: Someone right over here to the left.
APRIL OVERSTREET: Ah, thank you. Sorry.
ANTHONY BELLAMY: Thank you. I'm just trying to see if there were hands.
MARY BETH GRANT: Oh, do you not?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: Sorry. It works.
ABBY PRIEHS: Yeah, I never have that memorized.
AUDIENCE: Besides using the timer, do you have any other tips for walking alone, either in Ithaca Commons or in town or at night on campus?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: So I would recommend not walking alone. That's my first recommendation. The second thing is the Rave Guardian app has where we can follow-- where you can put in a safety timer to do that if you're near campus or just off campus. Also, if you feel that unsafe and you ask for an escort instead of virtual, we'll send someone down, whether it's our CPAs, which are un-uniformed, unarmed officers that we have, and then-- or if they're not available, then one of the officers will come down and give you an escort if you feel that unsafe.
Remember we have Uber out there, and Lyft, and those organizations. And there is a local taxi company as well that's always around if you need a ride.
The Commons is safe enough where you could walk by yourself. But like I said, I would recommend, at any point, try not to walk alone. And let your roommate know where you're going, where you're coming from, and things like that, if you don't want to let your parents know.
APRIL OVERSTREET: Other questions? Yes.
AUDIENCE: Are students allowed to have scooters, electric scooters, on campus?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: So scooters-- New York state law, scooters should not be on the road-- or should not be on the sidewalk, I'm sorry. They are allowed on campus. We understand students have to get around. We just want them to understand that there's pedestrians and there's vehicle traffic that they need to be mindful of as well.
So scooters are allowed, but we try and make sure they're mindful and stuff. The university provides the TCAT bus service for free to students. You just have to have your ID on them. So you're going to find during the winter the scooter is probably not going to help you, but the bus will be a great advantage to you to utilize.
AUDIENCE: Do you have any bicycle safety tips? Are we supposed to ride on sidewalks or the road?
ANTHONY BELLAMY: I can't hear her.
ABBY PRIEHS: Bicycle safety tips.
ANTHONY BELLAMY: So bicycles have the same obligation as a vehicle on the roadway. You have to stop for traffic lights. You have to stop for stop signs. And there has to be a stop for pedestrians.
So what we're finding a lot of times, bicycle sometimes don't follow the rules. They ride their bikes on the sidewalk when, in fact, the university has gone out of their way to make sure there's bike lanes on most of our roadways and to utilize those lanes when you're riding the bike.
Make sure you have a helmet. Make sure you use a KryptoLok on your bike. We're a safe campus. But we're not a theft-free campus, if that makes sense.
So at times, we have others who decide that your bike is nicer than theirs, and they will take them. So make sure you registered your bike with our transportation services, and they'll give you a tag. That way, if your bike happens to be taken and is located, then we can easily get it back to you.
But bikes-- did I say bike helmets? You've got to have lights on your bicycle as well if you're going to ride at night. At times, you may see our bicycle patrol out. We patrol by foot, and we patrol by bicycle as well. So our bike officers are out as well. You'll see them on the streets.
APRIL OVERSTREET: And not all pathways on campus permit bikes. So be aware of that as well.
ANTHONY BELLAMY: Right, like Ho Plaza. In the center of Ho Plaza, that's like a dismount zone, believe or not. But people will still ride through there. And we try to educate everyone on that, not to penalize anyone or send anyone to a court or anything like that. We just try to educate everybody is what we look for.
APRIL OVERSTREET: I know that we may have a few more questions. Our panelists are going to stay around for a few minutes afterwards. So feel free to come up and ask them any questions you may have. But let's thank Mary Beth, Tony, and Abby for their presentation today.
[APPLAUSE]
Campus Safety is a priority at Cornell. Staff members from the Office of the Dean of Students, Residential Lie, and Cornell University Police will discuss campus safety and risk reduction.
Presented by Mary Beth Grant, Senior Associate Dean of Students, Care and Crisis ServicesAnthony Bellamy, Deputy Chief of Cornell PoliceAbby Priehs, Director of Residential Life
