Students keep up awareness

Walking home or to a car after a day at school has become a little more complicated recently.

While students say they don’t feel unsafe around school, safety concerns in Hyde Park such as the fatal shooting in December of Shaoxiong “Dennis” Zheng have prompted some to utilize additional strategies for safety and increased awareness of their surroundings. 

Issues with safety haven’t changed the activities that senior Alp Demirtas enjoys, but they have caused him to take extra caution while walking around.

“I still, like, go out downtown and go out in Hyde Park and do all those things,, but I just always remain vigilant because you never know what might happen,” said Alp, a Woodlawn neighborhood resident. “I always look around me just to make sure I’m not being followed, make sure to keep my phone out of sight.”

Alp said he and his parents have a couple ways to make sure he stays safe, such as phone tracking and a curfew, although they started well before the most recent safety concerns in Hyde Park.

“My parents just want me to come home before it’s dark,” Alp said. “They’re also able to see where I’m at and my location and stuff, so that kind of helps ease things.”

 Senior and Hyde Park resident Jonah Schloerb, who lives near Promontory Point, said he often walks home after dark. According to Jonah, more street lights and blue-light systems may help ease concerns of students.

“Having more street lights everywhere just so everything’s lit up and those blue-light things on the street corners that you can push the button of,” Jonah said. “Those help me feel more safe.”

After dance troupe practice, junior Ishani Hariprasad drives herself home in the Kenwood neighborhood. With the recent frequent security notifications from the university, she is more careful.

“Walking to my car when it’s darker after dance practice, I usually walk with somebody, like one of my friends,” Ishani said.

Ishani said the security alerts are a topic of concern in her family.

“Every time my dad gets one of the emails, he forwards it to me and my sister, and she’s at the university,” Ishani said. “Once I leave the house in the morning, he and my mom both ask me to text them when I get to school and, like, vice versa when I leave.”

Hyde Park junior Anna Bohlen lives only half a block from school, and while she said she usually feels safe walking home, there are times when she’s uneasy.

“I definitely watch my surroundings more, and if it’s dark out and there’s someone on the street, I watch them carefully, just in case,” Anna said. “I don’t think my parents feel fully comfortable with the idea of me walking home in the dark, but they’re OK with it since I live so close.”