On Campus Safety Day, Wellesley College Police Connect with the Community

In an effort to help Wellesley students get acquainted with the services in place to protect them, the Wellesley College Police Department will sponsor a campus Campus Safety Day Wednesday, October 18, on Severance Green from 1 pm to 4 pm.

A chief purpose of the event, said Wellesley Sergeant Bruce D. Whitney, is to encourage students to get to know the first responders who serve the community.

“This way, they get to meet and greet the men and women in the department in a different setting,” said Whitney. “Quite often, the interaction between our officers and our students is when we’re responding to a call or some type of emergency. This will be informal, more conducive to conversation and asking questions.”

Officers will demonstrate how to use a defibrillator and distribute a list of their locations around campus, and will discuss and demonstrate some of the techniques they teach in the Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) course. Students will also have an opportunity to wear special “fatal vision” goggles, which simulate the effects of alcohol and drug intoxication.

Lauren Mostrom ’18 is one of four student supervisors who work in the department on work-study. She helps distribute Wellesley identification cards and parking decals, responds to service calls when students get locked out of their dorm rooms, and takes on other administrative duties.

Mostrom has been working in the department since her first year at Wellesley. “I wanted to work for campus police my first year because I was looking for an on-campus job that would really contribute to the community, and I felt that handling parking passes and helping with escort services would be a way I could make sure the police officers had time to attend to more important issues that come up,” she said.

She said Campus Safety Day is a good idea because “it’s important for the entire student body to know that Wellesley College Police Department is on the side of the students.”

In addition to campus police officers, representatives from the College’s counseling service will be on hand, and staff from the Town of Wellesley’s fire department and police department will be there to discuss fire safety.

Image (left to right): Ofc. Frank Urbani, Faisa Warsame ’21, Shania Baldwin ’21, and Ofc. Katie Kolodziejczyk