Columbia security guards have been going all vigilante of late, patrolling the neighborhood (or at least Broadway and Amsterdam between 111th and 116th) on foot. Apparently, the new security protocol is a response to two recent muggings at 112th and Amsterdam. One tipster reports seeing ten police officers and security guards on a single walk on Broadway from 114th to 106th. If the plethora of patrollers isn't making you paranoid yet, Barnard is alerting its students to neighborhood crime through ubiquitous posters.

A search of the Spec's archives shows only one report of a mugging in the past five months, but a Public Safety account reveals a spate of crime in the new year. It's starting to feel a little early '80s here on the Upper West Side, don't you think?

Edited, 5:30pm: Apparently the Spec has quite a bit of coverage of recent crimes in the neighborhood. Sorry, Spec!

As the weather warms and the tumbleweeds jangle their way down College Walk, a question remains: what'n the hell are all these people still doing here? In what could very well turn out to be the first (or, perhaps, last) of a series, Bwog attempts to answer this question--one interloper at a time. Our first subject is non-interloper Michael, who's been valiantly guarding the vertical ghost-town known as Carman Hall.

Why are you here?

I'm doing what I do all year round--security. I act as a deterrent.

At this point yes, but international students will be moving in over the next few days.

No. Trust me, when it's fully occupied it's hard enough. It's like a relief for us now.

Interaction between me and the students. I see them when they come straight from high school and I watch them grow. I try to be like a guiding light for them.

The noise. When you get five, six hundred people passing in and out it's hard to concentrate.

Enlightening! More hard-hitting journalism as the summer progresses...

While Public Safety clamps down on Columbia's physical security, some students were alerted today to a breach in the university's virtual defenses. According to an email they received, Housing and Dining accidentally exposed information from students' housing files online for a period on April 2nd. "Exposure was limited," the email goes on to say, "because there were no links to the files on any Columbia website and because the files could only be viewed with a Columbia University UNI and password and a specific type of software." Still, many students' Social Security Numbers were among the bits of information placed online.

In the wake of the incident, Housing and Dining has, it claims, attempted to limit further exposure of student SSNs. The files were, of course, removed from the website, and students affected were offered a year of free credit monitoring, or the ability to file fraud reports or run credit checks with various agencies free of charge, if they so choose. The administration is clearly doing much to ensure no further damage to students results from this incident. Though it has been attempting to move away from the use of SSNs, however, their presence on student datasets is still prevalent, and the security precautions needed to secure them clearly have some way to go.

The full email from Lisa Hogarty to affected students appears below the jump.

-CJS

Following the Virginia Tech shootings, Public Safety has announced that all Student Aides, who help man dorm security desks, are to be replaced with regular security guards for the rest of the semester. In an email sent today by Student Aide Coordinator Andrew Ness (provided after the jump), students who work at the desks were told to pick up their paychecks and not to report for duty again.

Some who wrote to Bwog questioned the move, especially because students were invited to apply again for the same positions when Fall semester came around. "They did not provide a correlation between the shootings and exactly why we should lose our jobs," said one of the students affected. "It's only bad if we're randomly killed now, but not in September?"

Bwog posed this question to Mr. Ness, who wrote that he was not at liberty to discuss Public Safety's plans in further detail. He simply confirmed that, following "the events at Virginia Tech[,] the University is reexamining its security policies to ensure the continued safety of the University community and to maintain our position as the safest Ivy League School."

UPDATE, Wednesday, 11:12 AM: Assistant VP for Strategic Communications and Planning Rosemary Keane assures us that no students will lose their jobs--all will be reassigned to jobs in Housing and Dining.

- CJS

Bwogger Katie Reedy overheard the phone conversation of a dorm security guard...

"I know. I know, I was like 'oh damn' too... Yea, and so I asked her, I said, 'Girl, how do you know it's mine.' And she said, 'I didn't ever do it with anyone else.' And I was like, 'What?! Girl, I need to know this is for real - I need to know that this is not just some Maury shit.' I said, 'I am not a statistic!!'"

Just make sure that at Thanksgiving dinner 20 years from now, you don't let him know he was an accident. Bwog knows that hurts.

Addison Anderson writes in...

just walked into EC, and the security guard has a piece of paper taped on the wall above him with something along the lines of:

The 'I'm Just That Bored' Trivia Question of the Day: What is the full name of the marshmallow man who attacked New York City in the movie Ghostbusters?

The consensus on the bwgossip alias is: Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man.

...in related security guard news, boredom can be cured by Plato:

At the Hartley security desk...

Security Guard: "I'm a philosopher. Philosopher. Not a preacher. Thank God I'm not a preacher. No, preacher is a good job. Actually, I'm a teacher. A teacher without any students."
[Hands ID to student.]
Girl: "OK. Thank you."

Students living in Cathedral Gardens and 601 West 110th street received an e-mail this morning from Barnard Dean Dorothy Denburg regarding last night's stabbing and robbery of the Assistant Superintendent of Cathedral Gardens. The victim, Oscar Sevilla, is currently being treated at St. Luke's hospital.

The incident occurred between Broadway and Amsterdam on 110th St. and has prompted Barnard security to increase surveillance of the area. Bwog will continue to follow developments.

Full text of e-mail after the jump. October 23rd update: Today's Spec article can be read here.

EC Security guard, after smiling kindly to a woman whose child had been rampaging wildly through the security room:

"I just wanna get down there and [slaps his hands together] that shit...God I hate her..." [continues as tipster makes his escape]

In front of Avery:

"I mean just because she's Jewel's sister doesn't mean she can get away with murder!!"

Thanks tipsters Chris Szabla and S Alex Kudroff

Concerned Mother: This doesn't make any sense. This is three and this is eleven. Why am I signing ten o'clock after this?

Security guard 1: No this is fine.

Concerned Mother: But this makes no sense, none of the times are in order.

Security guard 2: Yes they are look....uhhh....

At which point, his powers seemed to fail.

Overheard! in Café 212:
Girl 1: It really sucks that Anna Nicole Smith's kid died.
Girl 2: How'd he die?
Girl 1: He overdosed on drugs.
Passing Boy: If Anna Nicole Smith was my mom, I'd probably
do drugs too.
[Girls 1, 2 stare as passing boy passes by.]

Overheard! outside of Carman:
[Mobile phone.] "Well, I went to talk to my advisor today, and he wasn't even there! The secretary lady told me I'd have to come back with a form, but I'm not sure which form she means—I was going to ask the advisor! Ugghh, Columbia! There's just so much... What's the word? Bureaucracy!"
Columbia: a school of hard knocks and unwittingly repetitive railers.

Overheard! on the west end of the Low Library steps:
[Mobile phone.] "What do you mean she doesn't want the Nobel!"

Overheard! at the EC security desk:
Male Security Guard: The more you drink, the better you look. And I would know, as I've been drunk many a times.
Some Preppy Guy: ...

Overheard! in Intermediate Macroeconomics:
Xavier Sala-I-Martin: But even sperm, you put a helmet on sperm, you get no cookies!

Warm thanks and congratulations to tipsters Brandie Moreno, Taylor Walsh, Seth Berliner, John Shekitka, and John Klopfer. Send us your gossip, one and all!