Campus van services aim to keep students safe at night, but go about it in different ways

By: Kristina Larsen

Posted: 10/10/08

Offering late night shuttle services for students on campus, the Husky Watch and UConn GUARD Dogs programs work to ensure no one has to walk alone. Each is student-run and accessible only to students. But that may just be where the similarities end.

Husky Watch has served the community for many years, providing escorts and rides during the school year. The program is run by student employees with Master Sgt. Cynthia Sullivan of the UConn Police Department as its supervisor. Students who join Husky Watch begin as walking escorts on campus and work their way up to be dispatchers and coordinators.

Every day, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., a shuttle van is offered to all students requesting an escort. After 8 p.m. Husky Watch provides only walking escorts to on campus locations, including parking lots. Only sober students will be picked up and transported by Husky Watch.

Sullivan says that Husky Watch is "mainly a community service." She says the choice to not take on passengers who are under the influence is a matter of safety and that the Husky Watch service is "not to give people rides to and from parties."

Occasionally, students are denied a ride because they are under the influence of alcohol. For such a situation, GUARD Dogs offers an alternative to Husky Watch.

GUARD Dogs promotes itself as a safe, non-judgmental transportation option on campus which caters to both the sober and the intoxicated. Those who are inebriated are able to find a ride home with GUARD Dogs, as long as they are not belligerent or in need of medical attention.

Students simply need to call the GUARD Dogs dispatch to arrange for a ride to their residence. As long as it is within three miles of campus, a pair of GUARD Dogs volunteers will take any UConn student home.

The vans used by the GUARD Dogs run on Friday and Saturday evenings from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. due to peak demand.

While there is a late night bus now, some students still prefer GUARD Dogs or Husky Watch because of their good record. There have been incidents on the late night bus which made some students uncomfortable with riding it.

Erica Huang, a 7th-semester pre-pharmacy student, says the late night bus "is like riding to hell and back. The girl next to me had clearly thrown up on herself earlier. I had to get off before my stop, so it wasn't a very effective option."

"[Being] student-run creates a good sense of communal respect," says Lauren Silber, a 5th-semester English major who serves as the assistant executive director for GUARD Dogs.

Silber believes that this respect has contributed greatly to the smooth running of GUARD Dogs. She is very proud of GUARD Dogs' safety record, saying that despite allowing inebriated people in their vans, there have been no incidents this semester and only one incident of alcohol poisoning last semester.

Husky Watch has a similar track record with no incidents in the past few years. They do occasionally need to refuse rides to intoxicated students, but there have been no safety issues.

Whatever a student's preference or need, it is clear that there are a variety of safe options for travel on campus.