If we only had the money…
UC Berkeley’s Light the Way fundraising campaign officially ended on March 6, 2024, with $7.37 BILLION raised, vastly exceeding its original $6 billion goal. A cause for celebration! But Cal parents have mixed feelings about this milestone. While our students are in many ways thriving, they are exposed to disproportionately high levels of crime – and Cal is not doing enough to protect them.
So here’s an idea. We’re all familiar with Rounding Up for Charity – maybe Cal could Round Down for Student Safety and spend $370 million of its newly acquired treasure on security measures to keep our Bears safe. That would still leave a staggering $7 billion to secure Berkeley’s status as the world’s top public research and teaching university.
New buildings and programs don’t count for much if security concerns prevent students and faculty from taking advantage of them – and if prospective students or instructors decline to join the Cal community because they don’t view UC Berkeley as safe and livable. A case in point is a capstone gift for upgrades to the lower three floors of Moffitt Library, to create a “first floor [offering] space to study and reflect; the second, a maker studio and other spaces for collaboration; and the third, an exhibit space, an expanded Free Speech Movement Café and a large lounge.” Sounds exciting! But, unfortunately, at night many students prefer to study in their dorms or apartments because they don’t feel safe walking around campus or surrounding streets after dark.
Even just a fraction of $370 million – say, $37 million – would go a long way toward making UC Berkeley safer for students, by funding infrastructure like outdoor lights, emergency call boxes, security cameras and building-access systems. Just look at UC Davis, which has committed $20 million to those exact safety enhancements, with $5 million to be spent in the first year (‘24-’25) alone. (With the extra $17 million, perhaps Cal could fence the South Side Residence Hall Units, expand the locations and service hours of dorm lobby monitors and staff up BearWalk so students can get around safely at night.)
The truth is, money for safety can always be found when UC Berkeley deems it necessary, as evidenced by the millions of dollars spent on mutual law enforcement aid and private guards to secure, beginning in January 2024, the People’s Park construction site. (A bold move that SafeBears applauds!) But why isn’t leadership prioritizing student safety and expediting solutions across all areas of need?
Why does community safety at Cal fail to inspire the creative problem solving that characterizes the university’s academic excellence, or for that matter its fundraising prowess?
Other UC campuses are stepping up to improve student safety, giving the lie to the view that progress at a snail’s pace is “just the way it is” at large public universities. UC Irvine has launched a pilot program of public safety responders who will handle noncriminal calls for service, freeing up sworn police officers to handle more serious matters. That is the type of “safety ambassador” program SafeBears deployed this month with our private security pilot – and one we would like the university to fund, as USC does with its “yellow jackets.” But Cal’s new safety responder role is currently stalled by bureaucratic red tape and is “at risk” for failure, three years after the UC system instructed campuses to prioritize tiered policing.
Some of the security guards in the SafeBears Private Security Pilot: Bay Area residents who are licensed, trained & background-checked.
So while SafeBears would love for some of that $7.37 billion to be spent on community safety, we’re not waiting for the administration to keep our Bears safe. We’ve launched our private security pilot (March 6 - 23, 2024) and are telling the world about it. As SafeBears president Sagar Jethani puts it:
The fact is if the administration is not going to act, despite repeated pleas from parents and students to take more substantial action, then we’re going to act. We want to, frankly, turn up the heat with the administration. We want to show that we’re not content to just wait forever to have these safety ambassadors deployed.
Read the extensive news coverage of the SafeBears private security pilot!
LA Times Opinion: I wanted to hate what UC Berkeley parents are doing in the name of safety, but I can’t
