Wofford students become more aware of everyday dangers unknown to them, even from the smallest of places.
Right now at Wofford, much atten- tion has been drawn to student park- ing, as there have been break-ins and damage done to vehicles on campus.
Students are responsible for pro- tecting their own property, includ- ing their vehicles if they choose to keep one on campus.
Despite the Wofford student body’s more recent attention to the break- ins, Director of Campus Safety Dwayne Harris maintains that these incidents are no anomaly in compar- ison to recent years.
“The number of car break-ins that have taken place this year is con- sistent with what we’ve seen in the past,” Harris said.
Additionally, Harris mentioned that none of the reported thefts have involved locked vehicles, suggesting student negligence to be a possible cause.
It appears that the key to prevent- ing car break-ins may lie in the key to the car itself.
Even so, some Wofford parking lots are more prone to theft than others.
“The parking lot for the Arts Cen- ter is on the perimeter of campus and alongside a city street. It can be easily accessible,” Harris said.
Due to the parking lots’ low lighting at night and spaciousness, campus safety is stressing the importance of locking cars and removing valuables from sight.
As there has been little observable difference in the number of car break-ins from previous years, and the incidents appear to be relatively preventable, Campus Safety have only made minor changes in regards to parking lot security.
“We haven’t changed our policies,” Harris said, “but we continue to increase patrols of campus parking lots and monitoring surveillance cameras. We also stress the importance of locking cars.”
Even though the policies put in place are made for the benefit of all the students driving on campus, there are external dangers that can- not be controlled, and therefore stu- dents must take steps to protect their personal belongings.
If the extent of the break-ins and the security protocol remains essentially the same to previous years, what has sparked the current buzz among students?
According to several student reports, the thefts are being carried out by some unlikely offenders.
“The car next to mine happened to be unlocked and there was a group of kids checking door handles on the car, and they opened the door and stole some of the belongings out of the car.” said Connor Kiggins ‘26.
The group of minors then proceeded to slam the car door into Kiggins’s car door, making a dent and causing some damage to the rear quarter panel of his car.
This, however, was not the only alleged actions of minors being mischievous on campus and breaking into multiple students’ cars.
Jordan Jackson ‘26 suffered an early morning wake up at 2 a.m. to be told his car had been broken into at the same location as Kiggins’.
“Campus Safety told me my car was broken into in the parking lot be- hind the environmental building, so I had to walk down there and make sure nothing was stolen and nothing was,” Jackson said.