Campus safety is an issue that concerns parents during college visits and it is something that students usually disregard because we already consider ourselves street smart. We know to travel in groups at night and we understand the purpose of the Blue Light system. We all receive emails when there is a crime on campus, but we never think that it will happen to us.

I have always thought that my campus, Southern Methodist University, was a safe place to walk around. The school is located in Highland Park, an upscale residential area of Dallas. I will walk back from the library late at night or will run to the 24-hour CVS across the street with a friend at midnight. I never felt unsafe, especially knowing that the SMU Police Department and Highland Park police were always patrolling the area at night. However, in the past week, I and many other SMU students have felt unsafe walking around campus after two crimes happened within five days of each other.

The first one occurred on Sunday, April 17 at 2:00 a.m. Three boys and a mother were robbed at gunpoint while walking along SMU Boulevard near Boedeker Street. This is an area near the George Bush Library, just a block away from SMU dorms. Four days later, a man attempted to rob a student. She was outside of the Owens Arts Center when a man approached her, holding a gun, and demanded her to “hand over all of her stuff.”

Fortunately, nobody was hurt from either of these incidents, but students were, and still are, shocked. I have been at SMU for almost four semesters now and this is the first time that two serious crimes have happened within days of each other on campus.

Sometimes I tend to forget that, although Highland Park is a residential area, Dallas is still in one of the largest cities in the country. Dallas experiences crime every day and Dallas will continue to see it. Every large city faces this reality.

Many SMU students do have good instincts and street smarts. I always see students in groups, especially when it’s dark or on a Friday night out. They use the “Giddy-Up” golf cart service that SMU offers to get from one place to another at night and boys walk with girls as another safety precaution. The SMU Police Department patrols the campus at night and it is common to see police cars roaming around campus roads or parked outside of dorms.

However, the safety system is not perfect. On some nights, students walk around alone. On other nights, there are not police cars parked outside of the dorms. These two recent crimes have reminded the SMU community that there is crime in Dallas and that there can be crime even at a school like SMU. All that we can do is simply be smart and pay attention to SMU PD's alerts and tips on how to be safe at night.

Students at SMU and at colleges across the country must continue to be cautious on and around campus, especially at night. These crimes have served as a wake-up-call and I hope that other students have learned that it is better to be safe than sorry.