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Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Observer

Group approves off-campus safety as BOT report topic

Student body president Adam Istvan presented his report topic for next week's Board of Trustees meeting for Student Senate approval at Wednesday's meeting.Istvan said his general focus would be off-campus safety, in reference both to students who live in the South Bend community and students who leave campus for entertainment or other reasons.The ND SafeBus initiative discussed at past Council of Representatives and Senate meetings will play a significant role in the report, Istvan said. "We've heard that 80 percent of students live on campus, but what we don't hear is that 57 percent of the senior class live off, so eventually over half of Notre Dame students will live off campus," Istvan said. "This is an indication that we need to make off-campus safety a priority."Chief executive assistant Dave Baron explained the scope of the report in further detail, saying it will also integrate ideas for safety seminars for off-campus students, a proposal for members of off-campus council to sit on neighborhood group boards and a request for Notre Dame Security/Police to make off-campus security an additional priority."For NDSP, policing ends on campus, but security doesn't," Baron said. "Students living in South Bend still fall under the guidelines of DuLac, so they should be secured by NDSP as well."Baron said student leaders will ask NDSP to write up a comprehensive security plan. The Senate approved the topic with no opposition. Istvan said that the report was to be completed and sent to the Trustees by today. The triannual Board of Trustees meeting will be held Oct. 7.

In other Senate news:u Brendan McHugh, Dillon senator and member of the Residence Life Committee, reported his findings about the University's willingness to consider paying for a legal music downloading service. McHugh said that Tom Monaghan, planning director for the Office of Information Technologies, discussed two options regarding the use of the Napster service. The first plan for unlimited downloading requires that the University pay $1 per month for every member of the student body, regardless of use. "The administration doesn't like to do that though, so that's not really feasible," McHugh said. The second route would require those who want the service sign up individually, and by using their Notre Dame email account as proof that they are a student, secure unlimited legal music downloads for $20 for the entire academic year. The price is not contingent upon the number of students that register, McHugh said. McHugh told fellow senators that he would like to make the pursuit of the latter option a student government initiative.