UNM Resident Hall Association

2700 Campus Blvd NE

Albuquerque, NM 87106
October 22, 2015
Project Requesting Funds: UNM RHA Student Government
Project Amount: $23,000 total / $15,410 Requested
Previous Funds: $7,590 Casas Del Rio
Board of Directors: James Walker, Teresa Ortiz, Megan Chibanga

Increased On Campus Safety and Job

Growth
A Proposal to UNM Student Housing from Resident Hall Association

The 3,000
students that are
on their college
journey, have
many things to
look forward to,
and the last thing
they should have
to worry about
their safety.

The University of New Mexico offers many incredible options

and opportunities to prospective residents who want to experience
living on campus. Residence Life & Student Housing, a University
company, is currently equipped with seven resident halls, with
traditional style halls and apartment style halls. Spread out through
these resident halls, there are 15 Living Learning Communities, which
gives students the choice to live with other students who are
studying in the same field or majors. There are currently
approximately 2,000 housed by Residence Life. The second housing
partner is a privately owned and managed company known as
American Campus Communities, which is known by Casas Del Rio.
Here, the non-tradition style suites house about 1,000 residence.
The 3,000 students that are on their college journey, have many
things to look forward to, and the last thing they should have to
worry about their safety.

This proposal has been designed so that you, the Administrative

Director, along with the Business Manager can not only further
improve Res Life through implementation of more jobs, but by also
making this a safer place to live. Specifically, we are proposing that
five more students be hired to work the Student Resource Center
front desk, and for rounds to be conducted in more frequent
intervals by the security staff.
Why Our Campus Needs More Security
Before we begin describing our plan, we would like to point out some
factors of why we need increased security. The current safety
curriculum being place here on campus simply will not suffice. The
University has several branches of security that seems to expand
across all levels, but with the very limited exposure. It not only gives
the University of New Mexico a bad reputation, but creates a taken
sense of unease to the residents living on campus. What can help
improve the quality of living here on campus would be to increase
security personnel working at the desk, increase the number of
rounds they do per night, and encourage the police stations to have
more officers on duty, also ask them make more rounds.
The Plan
In proposal, we will first discuss the issues that current implemented
security has. Then we will go into detail of how many security guards
should be hired, then to the cost per semester, and finally some
steps we can take in the future that will continue our mission to
improve the quality of living on campus.
Current Issues
Living on campus comes with a plethora of perks, such as being able
to wake up 10 minutes to class and make it on time, having an
education-minded community, and being pretty close to many
stores, restaurants, and shops. Unfortunately, a downside does exist.
Because the UNM residence halls is not gated, anyone can enter the
campus as they please. This includes the homeless, non-residents,

and even, very often sighted, hospital patients at any hour of the
day. We must make it clear, that not everyone who decides to visit
the residence halls is a threat, but there still lies an opportunity for
crimes to be committed by those who do not live on campus, just as
easily as those who do live here may be able to do so.

View of RVA Hall and Street. Jon Morales

If you read the entire resident hall handbook, there are several steps
one can take to be safe. Many are very basic as locking your door,
not letting strangers in, etc. There is one tip mentioned stating that
you can call the University of New Mexico Police Department
(UNMPD) if you want to get an escort to your car or your hall.
Unfortunately there are some problems.
Bissan, a current Student Senator from the university student
government, known as Associated Students of the University of New
Mexico has been working on identifying and solving a few problems
with the UNMPD escort. She has stated that first of all, not many
students are aware of this service, or may know of the presence itself
but not necessarily know what they do, which is a problem in times
of emergency. Also, for those who are out of town, especially new
first year students and transfer student, the area code is not included
on the number put on the back of every student ID. Therefore, a
very important resource that is open to students may not readily be
available to many, restricting the effectiveness of this program.

Jon Morales

As you already know, there are a total of five offices spread

throughout Residence Life, including Casas Del Rio. Out of all of
these, only one office is a fully functioning 24 hour service desk,
while all the others close at 8 PM. This in its self is problem due to
the fact that the physical location of the only 24 hour service desk
may not benefit the residents living in the outer halls, such as the
Redondo Village Apartments, Alvarado Hall and even Hokona Hall,
and incidents may not be taken in the most timely manner.
All the halls have several Resident Advisors (RAs) that monitor the
halls, but as Beth, my buildings RA summarized, RAs can only report
any incidents that occur, and if they are minor, they can engage.
RAs are required to make rounds when they are on duty, which is on
average of three rounds every night. This helps greatly, since they
are on the lookout for things ranging from smoke to residents being
loud after quite hours. Although the presence of RAs is vital to the
establishment of a community within each hall, they have very
limited authority and power when a crime-related indecent was to
occur. Therefore, a well establishes security team is important.
Finally, our security team has a few things that can be improved. It is
standard procedure that at least one security guard and desk
attendant must be in the SRC 24 hour desk at all time, and they must
be well trained to handle many things. Also, at night, round must be

conducted. According to a few of the desk attendants and security

officers that I have interviewed, most of the time only one desk
attendant and one security guard is on duty during the daytime hours
until 8 o clock, then the number of people on duty tends to greatly
fluctuate from as many as five at one time, to as a little as one of
each.
This is a big problem. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention website, 19% of violent crimes occur
between the hours of 4 and 7 in the afternoon, while 15% occur
between 10 at night and 6 in the morning. This means, that all the
other recorded crimes happened between 6 in the morning until 4 in
the afternoon, (this is the time that usually only one security guard is
present.) If a problem was to arise somewhere on campus, and the
only security guard has to step out and check the incident, or is
making rounds, there will be only a desk attendant available if
anything else was to occur.

www.ojjdp.gov

Another major problem is the inconsistent rounds security make

around campus. When I was casually speaking to a few of the desk
attendance and security guards, many claimed that rounds were
made on average of every 1.5 hours to 2 hours. This may not seem
like a big deal, but it comes down whether or not they complete that
single round that was left our if they stick to making them every 2
hours.

The Solution
As you can see, there are many things that we can improve on
together to make this a better place for all of us. But one thing we
can do now, is better regulate how many security guards are on duty.
A minimum of 2 security guards should be present at any given hour
which would call for more members to be hired.
To add 5 more members would be perfect. According to the Res Life
web page, a student employee can work a maximum of 30 hours a
week. With five additional employees, 60 hours of work can help
distribution of employees be more efficient and effective.
Res Life currently has 150 student employees, and from them about
14 are dedicated to security and 10 to desk attendance at th24 hour
desk. More importantly, these 5 jobs will bring opportunity to 5
more students to be able to work on campus.
The regulation of rounds made would help beyond just creating more
organization in the work place, it will make this place safer. If rounds
are done in more regular intervals, people who should not be on
campus are more likely to be identified and thefts may be lessened,
among other crimes. Additionally, for those students that are out at
late hours, whether it be because of education purposes or they
were out enjoying themselves, a sense of ease may be created since
you know that a certain given time, someone will drive bye and
probably offer you an escort to your hall if you desired one.
Cost of Employees.
Of course, there has to be numbers. The good thing is that we only
have to worry about the pay of the 5 new employees. Casas Del Rio
has committed, with your support, to pay for one-third of the cost
since this service desk will also benefit the residents living on campus
in their halls. As you can see below, this is per semester, using the
rates that the current security guards are earning. The total amount
of money requested would be only be $15,410.00 per semester.

Pay per Hour

# of Employees
Weeks per Semester
Max Hrs. a week
Total
Buffer
Casas Del Rio Fund (33%)
Total Requested

$9.00
5
17
30
$22,95.000
$50.00
$7,590.00
$15,410.00

A Better Future Together

Residence Hall Association strives to help make this the best place to
live. With your help, we can work together to better our community,
and serve in its most basic needs. Our work does not stop her, for
we still need your support in getting the UNM PD to have more than
4 officers on duty at a given time. Residence Hall Association would
like to thank you for your time and all the help you have given us up
to this point.
Feel free to contact me at your earliest convenience if you have any
questions.
Best,

Jonathan Morales
Residence Hall Association

Bibliography
http://housing.unm.edu. University of New Mexico, 2015. web. 20.
Oct. 2015
http://casasdelriounm.com/. American Campuses and Universities
inc. 2015. web. 20. Oct. 2015
www.unm.edu/deptlist/310.htm. University of New Mexico 2015.
web. 19 Oct. 2015
https://housin.unm.edu/about/employment-opportunities/studentposition.html. University of New Mexico 2015. web. 19 Oct
2015
http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/offenders/qa03301.asp. Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. web. Oct 20.
2015
http://rha.unm.edu. University of New Mexico 2015. web. 23 Oct.
2015