Feeling safe in your living environment is a top priority for many people, especially when moving to a completely new and unfamiliar place. This is why campus safety is so important on a college campus.

For many students, feeling safe on their college campus of choice is a deal-breaking aspect. 

On Morningside’s campus, the campus security department fulfills many needs students may have. Other than keeping the campus safe, they also help injured students get to and from different campus buildings, let students into buildings if they don’t have keys, and drive students back to their dorms during the dark hours. 

Morningside students can call campus security at any time for any of these things. 

According to Claire Sells, a sophomore at Morningside University, she feels campus safety is at its peak of importance due to all the stories and allegations immersing at college campuses in Iowa and surrounding states. She also stated, “campus security is always there to make sure I make it back to my room safely when needed.”

Another female student, Nyah Eldridge had a completely different view on her safety. Nyah claims that she does not feel entirely safe because “most of the time, campus safety doesn’t hear about scary things happening until after they happen.” Another complaint Nyah had is the amount of time it takes for campus security to arrive when students call. There are sometimes when it takes them longer and the longer the wait, the more danger that students are in. 

Many students don’t think about campus safety until something bad happens.

At the beginning of this semester, there were a few sketchy cars appearing on Morningside’s campus and it had a ton of students on edge. After these incidents, students starting take more precautions when going outside of their dorm rooms. 

Traditional students that live on campus are not the only ones that are concerned when it comes to feeling safe on campus. 

Carly Howery is a senior at Morningside who is currently a commuter and she is also a transfer from UNL. Carly explained that going from a bigger D1 university to a small private college was quite a change. Carly also stated that she “felt safer on Morningside’s campus than on UNL’s campus.” The smaller campus allows her to know more people and feel much safer walking around Morningside’s campus by herself. 

No matter the background of the student or the age of the student, safety is still always in the forefront of student’s heads.