- Publication: The Atlanta Journal / The Atlanta Constitution (combined Saturday edition)
- Author: Kathy Scruggs, Staff Writer
- Original Publication Date: Saturday, April 25, 1992
University of Georgia sophomore Dana Getzinger was cozy in bed on Jan. 17, 1988, when a man wearing a ski mask and gloves snuck through a sliding glass door, past three sleeping roommates and into her bedroom.
“I woke up with a pillow over my face,” recalled Ms. Getzinger, now 23.
She fought off her attacker, then felt a sudden pain in her midsection.
“I thought it was a punch in my stomach,” she said, “but it was a knife — and it punctured my aorta and my liver.”
Two heart surgeries later, Ms. Getzinger founded Safe Campuses Now, an organization dedicated to helping college students learn more about the dangers around them. Members hope Thursday’s slaying of 22-year-old UGA senior Jennifer Lynn Stone of Roswell will spur officials at UGA and other colleges to start providing information about off-campus crime.
About 75 percent of UGA students live off-campus, but the university publishes statistics about on-campus crime only.
“The administration can’t ignore this anymore,” said Dave Blount, 23, head of the Athens office of Safe Campuses Now. “By reporting these crimes, it would not make the university look less desirable, but more desirable, because they will be giving the honest, real picture.”
UGA spokesman Tom Jackson said the university offers incoming students extensive orientation on safety issues, including how to choose an apartment and how to outfit it for security.
“We don’t provide off-campus crime statistics because there’s no way to tell who’s a student and who’s not,” Mr. Jackson said, noting that local police incident reports do not distinguish between students and non-students.
But legislation passed by the General Assembly this past session requires police agencies to note in their reports if a student is involved in a crime.
UGA supported the bill, which will provide school officials with adequate record-keeping. “It stands to reason that we’ll consider including those statistics once the statistics become available,” Mr. Jackson said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Blount said he knows of no college in Georgia that compiles off-campus crime statistics. “If they do, we’d be very happy to congratulate them. But for the most part, we think school administrators think it’s against their own best interests. Nobody wants to admit that violent crimes are occurring around the campus. It’s not a good sales pitch.”
Ms. Getzinger said her group has sorted through police incident reports and found 409 crimes — including 44 assaults and sex offenses — that involved students both on and off the UGA campus in a nine-week period during the last spring quarter. That’s three times the number of reported on-campus crimes.
“The demographics of a college town are so unique,” Ms. Getzinger said. “It’s their first time away from home. They’re so naive, so trusting. It’s a social environment, and they need that extra attention providing them with information.”
Safe Campuses Now chapters opened at the University of Florida and University of Tennessee in the past year, Mr. Blount said, and the group wants to start a rating program of all student housing on and off the UGA campus and eventually print a map showing high-crime areas.
“Our problem in a college town is that master keys circulate widely because students are moving in and out constantly,” Ms. Getzinger said.
In 1990, Ms. Getzinger was invited to Washington to appear before a congressional hearing on campus crime. She was the only victim testifying.
“The rest were all parents wearing buttons with pictures of their murdered children,” she said. “That was the first time I realized I can’t put it behind me. Something has to be done.”
Ms. Getzinger’s testimony is believed to have been instrumental in the passage of the Clery Bill — federal legislation requiring all colleges and universities to begin releasing on-campus crime statistics by this Sept. 1.
The bill is named after a family whose 19-year-old daughter, Jeanne Clery, was killed in her dorm at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in 1986.
Ms. Getzinger is “an extremely brave young woman who is trying to make a difference on college campuses and make students aware of the dangers and hazards that surround college,” said Lynda Getchis of Security on Campus, a Pennsylvania group founded by Jeanne Clery’s parents. “She’s really trying to make an impact.”
Ms. Getzinger ended up getting a degree in communications and now works for the Georgia Sheriffs Association. The man who attacked her in her off-campus apartment was never caught, and today her anger is mostly gone.
“My concern now,” she said, “is for the students who will be next.”
[Photo caption] Stabbed by an intruder in her Athens apartment, Dana Getzinger testified to Congress and founded a group to help college students learn more about the dangers around them. (Marlene Karas / Staff)
[Pull quote] “Our problem in a college town is that master keys circulate widely because students are moving in and out constantly.” — Dana Getzinger, Founder of Safe Campuses Now