On Monday evening, Binghamton University President Harvey Stenger held an open forum on public safety in the Chenango Champlain Collegiate Center.

This forum was the last of the three open forums Stenger has held as a part of his Road Map to Success and focused on personal safety on and off campus.

Attendees of this open forum included Stenger, the co-chairs of the Infrastructure Road Map team, student members of the Personal Safety Advisory Committee, University Police Chief Tim Faughnan and other members of the University community.

Stenger said the purpose of the forum was to discuss the problems that the Binghamton University community may have with the current safety provisions both on and off campus.

Participants broke into three separate groups to generate conversation concerning public safety. Each group was given a set of three questions, including: how do you define personal safety? What makes you feel safe or unsafe? What specific areas, activities or behaviors on campus or off campus make you feel safe or unsafe? And what can be done to improve safety on campus and off campus?

While the participants broke into groups, Faughnan encouraged them to voice their suggestions.

“We’re trying to be proactive rather than reactive,” Faughnan said. “We’re always looking for new ideas.”

Anthony Aprile, a freshman majoring in quantitative finance, said he attended the open forum to voice his concerns with Binghamton’s Downtown scene.

“I’ve been off campus, so I think from a student’s perspective, I would have a lot to input regarding that and how it’s kind of a shaky environment out there,” Aprile said. “Personally, I think it has a lot to do with Greek life and the bars.“

Sara Tosi, a junior majoring in political science, said she was not pleased with the safety programs that BU has in place.

“I had a negative experience with the escort program at Binghamton, which is supposed to be one of the safety programs,” Tosi said. “I knew that I wanted to bring it up someone, so I saw on B-Line that there was going to be this open forum on safety on campus.”

During the forum, participants discussed causes that might influence dangerous environments for students and brainstormed possible options to increase safety. Stenger and the co-chairs of the Infrastructure Road Map team contributed to the conversations while taking each student’s input.

Aprile brought up underage drinking.

“[Fraternities] tend to let kids in just based on their BU ID, which has no indication whatsoever of the student’s age and that creates crowds of kids who may or may not be under the influence of drugs and alcohol,” Aprile said. “That poses a real danger not only to them, but to the outside community and it also endangers the students from outside sources.”

At the end of the forum, the discussion leaders presented what they have gathered from their conversations with students. General concerns spanned from how students perceive space, to awareness of Good Samaritan policies and methods of educating new students about public safety.