The alleged exposure of a security guard to a Penn student after he walked her home one night does not seem to have affected the number of people using the escort service, the Division of Public Safety has reported.
Current walking-escort numbers are "running pretty much neck-and-neck" with escort use prior to the exposure, Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said.
In total, the number of walking escorts completed in November was 1,290. This marks a 4-percent increase over last November's number.
The increase in escorts has heartened Rush, who was afraid that the incident could have reduced the number of walks at a time when a rash of crimes has hit campus.
"That couldn't have happened at a worse time," she said, citing the number of other crimes that have occurred on and near campus in recent weeks.
As a response to the exposure, DPS and AlliedBarton, the security company through which Penn contracts out its security guards, have instituted a "secret shopper program," which began Thursday night.
In that program, AlliedBarton has sent employees who work in other locations throughout the city to campus.
The employees pose as students and request walking escorts. They are instructed to later report any problems.
Rush said that though "there's a couple of things they're going to correct," no problems reported thus far have been serious.
She gave an example in which one security officer asked an undercover AlliedBarton employee whether she was a freshman. Rush said that question violated the professional standards to which the guards are held.
"We don't want any personal information" discussed on the part of the guard, she said.
In addition, Rush said that student-government groups, such as the Undergraduate Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Students Assembly, will be running their own secret shopper programs.
The groups met with Rush the week of the exposure to discuss issues that might keep students away from utilizing the walking escort service in the wake of the incident.
Undergraduate Assembly chairman Jason Karsh said that, though no formal plan is in place, female members of the organizations were asked to use the escort service and report problems to DPS.
DPS spokeswoman Allina Boutillier also said that Penn has strived to make security guards more visible on campus in the wake of the shooting of Engineering senior Mari Oishi in January 2006.
This increased visibility - added to the fact that more total guards work on campus now than they did at that time - makes it more likely students will think of using the service, Boutillier said.
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