While students are off campus for the semester, Residential Programs and Services has increased security measures for residence halls, and IU Police Department increased patrols of campus.
RPS executive director Lukas Leftwich said RPS is limiting access to residence hall buildings to students who petitioned to stay on campus. All entry points to residence halls are locked, and only students staying on campus can enter.
“For the students whose belongings are here, they can rest assured that nobody can get into that space,” Leftwich said.
Leftwich said there are 250 to 300 students living in residence halls and 650 in campus apartments. IU granted all students who petitioned the ability to stay on campus. Students who asked to stay gave reasons such as not being able to return to their home country, not having housing outside of IU and having a family member who is immunocompromised.
RPS is trying to relocate students in sparsely populated residence halls to Spruce Hall and Willkie Quad. Leftwich said RPS wants to relocate students, so they can be closer to services such as dining and center desk functions.
Roughly two-thirds of students living in residence halls still have to return to campus to move out, Leftwich said.
“There's not an urgency to tick all the boxes and move out,” Leftwich said. “People are really focused on the right things, and that is their health and their safety.”
Moveouts are scheduled to start after Gov. Eric Holcomb’s stay-at-home order ends April 20. Appointments may have to be pushed back if the order is extended. Once a student has scheduled an appointment, RPS will give their crimson card the ability to open their residence hall and dorm door for the for the time period they booked.
RPS also cleared two floors of Briscoe Quad to house medical professionals. Students' belongings left in Briscoe were boxed and sent to Eigenmann Hall to be stored in the basement. Leftwich said those items are safe and secured.
Students can retrieve essential items by filling out an RPS form, Leftwich said. The items will be packaged and sent to the student for free. Leftwich said essential items include anything academically necessary such as textbooks or musical instruments or personal items such as medications or passports. Students can’t receive unessential items.
IUPD Chief Shannon Bunger said crime and the number of calls IUPD has received have decreased since students left. He said the decrease of crime has given them more time to patrol campus.
Bunger compared statistics of case reports after spring break from this year to last. There were 271 reports filed during IU's 2019 spring break but only 65 this year. Assaults and domestic battery have decreased significantly. Vandalism, theft, burglary and robbery numbers are lower but still remain relatively close to statistics from 2019.
Bunger said an intruder would have to go through three locked doors in order to get inside someone’s room. He said IUPD is also looking out for any tampering with windows on the first floors.
“We're just making sure that our patrols are covering the dorms where somebody might break a window on the first floor,” Bunger said. “People’s stuff is very secure.”
