Spectaguard to take control of Public Safety's Walking Escort

The Spectaguard security company -- which has handled all campus security services since January -- will take over the Division of Public Safety's Walking Escort Service effective July 1, Special Services Director Susan Hawkins said yesterday. Although Hawkins stressed that the overhaul will save costs and eliminate some thorny legal issues associated with hourly employees, several students who work for Walking Escort were frustrated at the prospect of losing their jobs and angry at administrators for not considering their concerns in making the decision to switch to Spectaguard. And even though students said rumors were swirling for months that a transition was imminent, University officials first broke the news to Walking Escort employees at a meeting yesterday afternoon -- two months before the proposed change is scheduled to take effect. But Hawkins maintained that the fate of Walking Escort "has been an open question for quite a while" and "like everything else, [Walking Escort] gets reevaluated" to identify possible opportunities for improvement. "Ultimately, it's a winning decision for the University," she said. "In the short run, there are students who thought they would work this summer or another semester who would probably be disappointed." Hawkins added that the University is "upgrading the service" through this change, which she called "fiscally sound." And she said the switch will eliminate "questionable" legal issues surrounding the annual re-hiring of employees who may work only 1,000 hours each year. But College junior Kenitra Carby -- who has worked for Walking Escort for 1 1/2 years -- claimed that administrators did not sufficiently consider student input in opting for Spectaguard. "We were just basically told, 'Too bad'," she said, noting that administrators instead asked for input on "how to help Spectaguard." Carby, who expected to work for Walking Escort this summer while she remained on campus, now hopes to land a job driving a van for the Penn Escort Service. "I don't appreciate losing my job, particularly when there are so few jobs on campus that you can do at night that have really flexible hours," she said. According to the Walking Escort World Wide Web page, the service is available seven days per week from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. Hawkins said Walking Escort teams performed 281 walks in March 1997. But Walking Escort employee and College senior Steve Caputo noted that the service -- founded by students in 1985 -- handled 1,142 walks in October 1996, the month following a robbery surge that culminated in the shooting of a student. And approximately two-thirds of Walking Escort's employees are Penn students, according to Caputo, a 34th Street writer. Carby maintained that Spectaguard employees lack the knowledge of campus that students bring to the job, adding that the transition could be rough when droves of new students, unfamiliar with the campus, arrive. "I also don't like the way they make it seem like it's kind of an easy job," she said. Hawkins said, however, that the University is making the right move with this decision. "I think any change that happens has an element of sadness and loss," she said. "At the same time, I think this is an appropriate administrative and management decision that's going to improve [Walking Escort]."

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