On Campus

UBC adds safety measures after sex assaults

Bus ads warn females

VANCOUVER – The University of British Columbia is putting extra safety measures in place following several sexual assaults on campus, but the response itself is stirring controversy just a few weeks after scandal erupted over a frosh-week rape chant.

The university is holding emergency meetings to alert students, handing out whistles and says it will install more lighting and step-up its late-night Safewalk program after three reported assaults.

RELATED: UBC’s Safewalk took 32 minutes to show up

The institution is also running a series of ads on 100 buses that come to the campus warning female students not to walk alone.

The response from one anonymous student is a series of unofficial posters warning males not to be rapists, saying a woman walking alone at night is not an invitation to assault.

Just last month, the Sauder School of Business, where the first-year commerce students involved in the chant attend class, was defaced with graffiti attacking the “rape culture” at the university.

Louise Cowin, vice-president of students for UBC, says practical safety measures are the priority, but she says a wider discussion is necessary and the university is forming a group to look at the issue and report back with recommendations.

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