Prompted by the murder of Xiaopeng “Pippen” Yuan in the fall, a group of Syracuse University students have developed a campaign aimed at increasing safety for the Chinese student population.

The executive board members of the China Development Student Think Tank, a student organization at SU, have been working in collaboration with university leadership since October to improve on- and off-campus safety for Chinese students as well as communication between the university and those students. The university is expected to publish a report addressing those issues sometime this month, said Shuai You, president of the think tank.

SU is currently implementing a few initiatives relating to safety and communication, but university officials also said that many resources are already available to Chinese and other international students that simply need to be better publicized.

“The issues of safety on this campus are, and have always been, of concern,” said Pat Burak, director of the Slutzker Center for International Services. “… What our responsibility is — as a university — is to get information out to the students.”

You and other officials in the think tank met with SU Chancellor Kent Syverud in October and have since met with university officials in the Division of Student Affairs and the Department of Public Safety, among others. They’ve also met with the 22-member Internalization Council, which was established in the fall.

In a survey conducted by the think tank among 384 Chinese students, 80 percent of respondents said they had “encountered a dangerous situation” in Syracuse. More than 40 percent said they believed the university hadn’t provided enough resources to ensure the safety of Chinese students.

Those safety concerns stem from Chinese students often living in what You called dangerous areas off campus. Often times, international students come from countries where universities are generally secure, gated environments, leading to misconceptions among those students about housing at American universities, Burak said.

“When students read on Craigslist, Orange Housing or whatever, that there’s housing one mile from the university. … It’s hard for them to know that American universities and colleges are situated in a city setting that doesn’t guarantee safety,” Burak said. “That’s a very foreign concept to many of them.”

Think tank officials have requested that SU’s Department of Public Safety more frequently patrol areas where Chinese students tend to live. DPS Associate Chief John Sardino said DPS has assigned an officer liaison specifically to international students and is in the beginning stages of assessing how it can help international students feel safer.

Sardino added that DPS already provides extended coverage of patrol officers in off-campus areas, in addition to offering safety escort transportation to students.

“I think a big component of it is education and trying to make sure that all of our students are aware of the services that we provide,” he said.

But Sardino also said that international students are often at a disadvantage because they don’t always have the ability to look at apartments before they move into them. He said he’s hoping the university will work to streamline that process for students.

The Office of Off-Campus and Commuter Services provides information and tips about safety to students planning to live off campus, including through webinars with international students before they choose their housing, Burak said.

The office is looking to expand those services in the future, but Burak said the office is too short on staff to do as much as it could be doing.

“That needs to be a bigger operation,” she said.

SU is, however, in the process of expanding its social media presence to better communicate with Chinese students and their families. The think tank suggested that the university create an official account on either WeChat or Weibo, two Chinese social media sites. SU is now “actively exploring ways” to add one of those sites to its social media portfolio, said Kevin Quinn, SU’s vice president for public affairs, in an email.

Additionally, the Chinese Consulate will soon be writing material in Chinese on the Slutzker Center’s website, Burak said.

Burak added that many of the problems relating to safety could be solved if there were more appealing on-campus housing options to students. She’d like to see the Skyhall dorms on South Campus undergo renovations, and she’s hoping to create an international living center in the space that the Counseling Center currently operates, if and when the center moves to Archbold Gymnasium.

The most recent draft of the Campus Framework plan proposes relocating South Campus housing to Main Campus, something Burak said she supports.

“That’s what has to happen,” she said. “This focus on bringing students closer to campus is important.”

But the framework is a long-term, 20-year infrastructure plan, and there is currently no strict timeline on the transfer of housing to main campus. In the meantime, You said he and other think tank members plan to continue working with the university to make campus a more vibrant place for Chinese students.

“I think the university leadership and Chancellor Syverud really understand what’s going on, and they want to help,” You said. “So I appreciate that they have a supportive attitude, but we will see because we are in progress and we are still sorting out what the solutions will be.”

Published on February 8, 2017 at 10:59 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu