The sexual assault on a University student early Friday morning highlighted the importance of exercising caution while moving around campus at night.
The 898-WALK service provides free walking escorts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Allied Security officers partner with the University City District to perform walking escorts for all members of the Penn community, students, faculty and staff.
"We strongly encourage people to use the escort," Director of Security and Technical Services Domenic Ceccanecchio said. "It's a valuable service, and it's one of the things that we think people should be taking more advantage of."
Despite the accessibility of the service, not many Penn students seem to be utilizing it.
"I feel like I've never had a need to use it," Wharton sophomore Renu Chintapalli said. "I feel like I'm always pretty close to home that I can just walk, and I'm usually with friends anyway."
Students cited impatience and embarrassment as factors for not wanting to use the service, but most agree that it is a valuable resource.
"As a male, I feel more safe walking at night," College freshman Robby Rothrock said. Nevertheless, Rothrock has the number in his phone and said he would not hesitate to call if he felt the need. "I would not compromise my safety for my ego, as large as my ego is."
Nursing junior Cindy Lu used the service once and said she was very satisfied.
"I thought that they would have to be pissed off to walk someone from Hill to the Quad, but they were very, very understanding," Lu said.
For College freshman Emily Ozan, the service made her feel more comfortable on Penn's campus.
"I wasn't really familiar with everything," said Ozan, who used the service once to walk back from the tennis courts during the first few weeks of school. "I felt a lot safer when I was walking home than I would've when I was by myself."
Ceccanecchio emphasized that students should not hesitate to call, no matter what the circumstances are.
"We don't discourage people from using it because they were at a frat party and had a couple of drinks," he said.
Waiting time should not be an issue either, Ceccanecchio said.
"We generally get the security officer out very quickly ... I would say five to ten minutes."
College sophomore Camille Hardiman is a frequent user of the 898-WALK option. She consistently used the service about twice a week during her freshman year.
Hardiman said she felt intimidated calling at first because she thought that she was "wasting their time" but has now become very comfortable using the service.
"I actually know a lot of those guys by name now, and they are just fascinating," Hardiman said. "I just love talking to them ... a lot of them are really polite and will walk on the left side of the street so you won't get hit by a car. They're just really nice people."
Still, a number of students were not aware of the service.
Nursing doctoral student Carrie Stricker had not heard of it, but says that she may use it now that she knows about it.
"That's a great service, given the area of the city we live in," said Stricker. "It's critical that we have flexible service to ensure the security of Penn students given our city environment."
College freshman Andrea Duguet had never heard of the service either and said that she mostly travels in groups. Yet she said she finds it comforting to know that there is someone that she could reach. "It's worth the phone call."
