Escort expands routes

The University has increased the area considered off-campus and made more students eligible to receive door-to-door Escort Service rides, Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Jeff Lichtman announced last night at the first UA meeting of the year. Lichtman said that the recent student outcry and the actual running of Escort Service created a "two-pronged effort [which] achieved desired results." Last Wednesday, UA members Mark Frederick, David Rose and Lichtman met with Barbara Cassel, a member of the committee which revised Escort Service, to express student concerns, College senior Lichtman said last night. Lichtman said he later met with Bob Furness and Steve Murray, facilitators of the service, and John Kuprevich, University police commissioner, who told him that Escort was again being revised. "These are bold steps taken by the administration in response to UA lobbying and student outcry," Lichtman told UA members. "You have to respond to complaints." The walking Escort boundaries have been reduced to include only immediate on-campus areas. Instead of reaching to 40th Street on the west, for example, the new boundary is 38th Street. Under the new system, residents of Hamilton Court, Chestnut Hall, International House and the areas around 39th and Pine and Delancey streets will now be picked up at their doors and transported through the already-established loops to the transit stops closest to their points of destination on campus. Under the previous system, off-campus students in those areas had to use walking Escorts to transit stops on campus. Frederick, UA chairperson of the Safety and Security Committee, said after the meeting that the newest changes to Escort Service were steps in the right direction. "There's been a breakthrough and that's great, but we still have to hammer out the kinks," he said, "It's not a perfect system." Frederick said that Murray and Kuprevich will be holding a forum on Escort Service for students on Wednesday where they will address student misconceptions about the system. Also at the UA meeting, Melanie Brownrout, Nominations and Elections Committee chairperson, announced that the NEC will soon begin accepting student applications for a new Trustee committee for international affairs. Brownrout also said the NEC is currently revising its Fair Practices Code implemented during student government elections because of incidents last year involving candidates being quoted in The Daily Pennsylvanian. Also, Student Planning and Events Committee representatives said at the meeting that their group will consider a motion tomorrow to establish the Joint Co-Sponsorship Board along with the Student Activities Council.