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Letter to the Student Body: Senator GraceMary Wicklem
By GraceMary Wicklem (gwicklem@css.edu)
March 28, 2025
Dear Saints,
My name is GraceMary and I currently serve as your Sophomore General Senator. I am the Chair of the Health and Safety subcommittee and I am coming to you with the issue of the outdated campus security phones. As I’m sure you've seen, there are security phones all over campus (the yellow boxes), but when doing routine checks there are more and more phones that are not working. It takes weeks for replacement parts to come in and some of the parts for the phones are becoming obsolete, which makes it almost impossible to fix them.
One way we could ensure the safety and well-being of students, staff, facilities, and visitors would be installing blue light poles on campus. A blue light pole is a tall, well-lit pole with a blue light and a button that anyone is able to press. It will first call campus security and, if they do not pick up, it calls emergency services.
Submitted photo// GraceMary Wicklem
Pictured below: Blue light pole along a UMD walking path. Script photo// Molly MacGregor.
These poles not only help with faster response times to emergencies, but also deter criminal activity due to the light they provide and the message they send that the campus is under surveillance and predatory actions will be dealt with quickly and accordingly
In places of high foot traffic, these poles are especially important as they ensure a sense of security. Our neighboring campuses, UMD and UWS, have these blue light poles all over their campus to promote safety. SGA understands that these poles are very expensive but due to the increase of students living on campus in the coming years we find it especially imperative that these blue light poles become an addition to campus.
Stay safe out there Saints!
Senator GraceMary Wicklem
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