The California Lutheran University Safety Committee sent a campus-wide email last week, bringing attention to September being “National Campus Safety Awareness Month” and provided links to campus safety resources.
The email comes after a long period of no communication from the Safety Committee. The email also did not specify which individuals make up the committee, and stated that any safety concerns should be sent to [email protected].
In an email interview, David Hilke, director of campus safety at Cal Lutheran and member of the Safety Committee said he attended the committee’s last meeting seven years ago. According to Hilke’s email, the committee’s main service is to “promote and publicize the safety program to all university faculty, staff and students.”
The Campus Safety webpage featuring all the school’s safety programs provides no new links or information regarding the Safety Committee except for a ‘Meeting Minutes’ document from 2017. The PDF highlighted its meeting with plans to reunite the following month and address concerns and projects in progress, but no new information has been shared since.
The Echo reached out to the Safety Committee via email, but did not receive any response.
The Echo was also unable to arrange an interview with Craig Lightfoot, assistant director of Campus Safety and, according to Hilke, chair of the Safety Committee, whom Hilke said was out of office. The Echo was also unable to reach Campus Safety Supervisors Rey Lainez and Doug Flores. College Services Manager Jana Weber of the College of Arts & Sciences was also contacted, but no response was received. Hilke said the committee’s operations were stopped due in 2020 due to the pandemic. It is still unclear if they have formally begun again.
The Safety Committee is also not the only committee that went dormant during the pandemic, according to Ryan Van Ommeren, associate vice president of planning & services.
“Other committees such as the sustainability committee went dormant during the pandemic, and it has required a fair amount of effort to restore those committees,” Van Ommeren said in an email interview.
Senior Catherine Ortez, who works as the information desk assistant inside the Student Union, said she was unaware of the return of the Safety Committee.
It was planned for the Safety Committee to return after the establishment of the Environmental Health and Safety Department, “In an effort to streamline safety related functions and communications,” Hilke said.
“The university is hiring a director of Environmental Health and Safety Department that will eventually oversee that committee and other safety functions on campus,” Van Ommeren said.
The Safety Committee has also collaborated with the university’s faculty operations and planning in the past, Van Ommeren stated in his email. Van Ommeren also said the safety committee works with other departments on campus on an “ad hoc” basis.
“If there was an issue in the theater, they [Safety Committee] would contact relevant individuals via email, and the issue would be worked on on an ad hoc basis (done for a specific purpose)”, Van Ommeren said.
Van Ommeren said he hopes for “issues [being] addressed and resolved in a more structured manner.”
