Students at NIU were welcomed warmly to campus over the past week, settling into their dorms and then beginning classes the following Monday.

Within less than a week on campus, however, students were already being informed through email of a sexual assault that had occurred on campus. This begs the question: generally, do young women feel safe on campus? Specifically, do young women feel safe at NIU? 

“No. Because I know everytime I leave my dorm alone I’m going to get catcalled. Especially at night,” said Cailey Baumbach, a freshman elementary education major.

One measure the school has taken to keep young women safer is the NIU Safe App. The app includes multiple features to help students access different safety measures in the case of an emergency, such as the panic button, which sends your location to public safety officials.

“We work to help educate our community, and one thing we think is very important is that our students download the Safe app on their mobile devices because that Safe app will give you information about what’s going on around campus and give you access to special services provided,” said Darren Mitchell, NIU Police Department’s chief. 

While this is one effective step to take in creating a safer campus, sexual assault prevention is not just about teaching women to defend themselves. As a university, one area that NIU lacks in is their ability to hold sexual predators accountable for their actions. 

Throughout the past few years, several cases of sexual assault and harassment have been reported to campus police and public safety, however most reported cases seem to end at “the NIU police department is investigating.”

“I think the school could’ve done more than just send one alert. If they made a bigger deal about it, people would’ve taken it more seriously,” said Alondra Rodriguez, freshman business administration student.

Another measure the school has taken in an attempt to prevent sexual assault on campus is the required sexual misconduct training course. However, the course can easily be completed in a minute by skipping to the quiz portion of the course, making its purpose completely pointless. 

While the idea is a good start, it is essential that the campus sees some changes made to the program to ensure the video is fully completed by all students.

At a school that claims to be progressive in terms of sexual assault awareness, when is NIU going to be taking sexual assault claims more seriously?