By Tejal Patel

Women of Action (WOA), the University women’s advocacy group, recently conducted an on-foot search for emergency telephones on campus.

“WOA has always been concerned with how few emergency blue lights there are on our campus, and we have been looking for ways to raise awareness about this for years,” said Cheryl Curry, a senior English major and member of Women of Action. “This year, since the new lighted campus maps were put up, we started to realize they tell you where to park but they don’t have the blue lights marked on them.”

Three members of WOA volunteered to go around the north and south sides of campus in search of blue lights. Curry, along with Courtney Baumer, a senior elementary education major, walked around the academic side of campus with a printed map of the campus taken from the University’s Web site and marked of the locations where they found blue lights. Rebecca Hom, a senior sociology major, searched the residential side of campus.

WOA found 17 blue lights. “I found that finding the blue lights was not really hard to do because I went during the middle of the day,” said Hom, who added that she began her search with an idea of where some of the emergency telephones are. “I was going around the residential side of campus, which is quite spread out, so the six blue lights that I found were not so hard to spot.” Although it was easy for Hom to spot the blue lights, she found that the size of the campus made it difficult to easily and quickly access all the blue lights.

Ed Bracht, the director of Public Safety, said there are currently 37 emergency phones on campus. All three pedestrian bridges have an emergency phone on either side, and all of the residence halls have emergency phones in front as well.

Some of the emergency phones are poles that have solar-powered blue lights on them and others are emergency phone booths that have signs above them that read “Emergency Telephone” in red. Both types of units connect directly to public safety when activated and are referred to as emergency phones. Some blue lights are also located directly on buildings such as the Chemistry/Physics building.

The difference between the locations is that the poles with blue lights have an emergency button on them rather than a telephone. When the button is pressed a voice recites the location of the emergency pole and activates the blue lights so that they begin to flash. Once the pole is activated a message goes to the walkie-talkie of every Public Safety officer. A student can speak directly with Public Safety by pushing the button again and talking into the speaker.

The areas with emergency phones also connect directly to Public Safety, but are to be used in a different way. Emergency phones are located in boxes labeled telephone that are either red, gray or yellow and have “Emergency Telephone” written above them in red. The phone is activated as soon as it is picked up and goes straight to Public Safety.

“I’m very confident they’re all working,” Bracht said, adding that all emergency phones are tested every Sunday to make sure they are working.

However, many students still don’t feel as safe as they could. “I wish Hofstra would make some changes that made me feel like the administration was trying to protect and serve the students; lately I feel their actions reflect only business concerns,” Curry said.

In the next two weeks, Bracht said three more emergency telephones will be added to the campus. One is expected to be installed near Barnard Hall. A second will be put in the parking lot adjacent to Dome Road within the next two weeks. The third will be placed in the recreation fields. On top of that, three additional units have been ordered. Bracht said he plans on putting one in the valley between Vander Poel, Estabrook, Constitution and Enterprise Halls.

The location of every emergency telephone on campus can be found on all bus stop maps. The new campus maps that were recently installed do not have the locations of the emergency telephones listed.

Regarding the addition of the emergency phone locations to the new maps, Bracht said, “I’d really look into it, but I don’t know if it’s conducive to those maps.”

An emergency phone in a grey box in front of Adams Hall on the south side of campus.