The bright yellow emergency call box outside the film and theatre school at York University is like a beacon for students in trouble

Except on this freezing March night, an “out of order” sign wrapped around the phone tower renders it useless.

It could be a symbol for safety measures adopted by York in efforts to stop the violence that, in spite of studies, reports and endless meetings, has continued since at least 2000. It brings the kind of publicity that an institution entrusted with the lives of 55,000 young people doesn’t want.

The latest incident occurred Mar. 6 at 10:45 p.m. when a man fired a gun in the student centre’s food court, wounding two young women. Neither of them sustained life-threatening injuries and police laid multiple charges the next day, but the sight of police tape in a student hub was frightening.

Again, recurring violence raises doubts about safety at York, particularly its sprawling Keele campus in north Toronto.

“We are always trying to do more to improve campus safety,” York spokesperson Janice Walls said in an email to the Star. “Gun violence is part of a systemic problem in the GTA and beyond, but we are very disturbed that this would occur on our campus.”

It’s impossible to draw comparisons with other schools because there’s no uniformly collected data on incidents of violence but, as some students observe, crime is hardly exclusive to York University.

Gun crime is atypical for York with its long history of sexual assaults on or near the Keele campus and attacks that include the 2011 beating death of a student from China in her nearby apartment.

In recent interviews at the student centre, foreign students are aghast at the thought of telling their parents about the gunman, while Sharon Vello, from Toronto, says her mother called her five times the day after the shootings to urge her not to go to school.

With a laugh, Vello tosses off: “Of course I did .”

The more easily answered question is whether students are frightened. Based on anecdotal evidence, some are scared, more so since the shootings, and those that aren’t say they’re reassured by a series of measures adopted by the school. They include emergency phones to security officials (76 staffers with plans to hire six more over the next six months) and a voluntary code that includes never walking alone at night.

Such reliance on safety measures emphasizes the importance for the university to keep its side of the bargain by ensuring the system functions smoothly and that emergency phones actually work. Walls says they are checked weekly.

“It scares me,” says Lisa Kurosawa, 22, of the recent violence, prefacing her remark by saying she’s from Japan, “a really peaceful country” where there aren’t guns.

“There were a lot of surprises. . . I thought Canada was peaceful.”

In contrast, Vello says she feels “absolutely safe” because she takes advantage of such programs as goSAFE, in which students or faculty members can contact people to escort them around campus.

There’s certainly no lack of attention on campus and at student associations. There’s a safety committee , with representatives from the administration, students and others, including the Toronto Police Service and the Canadian Union of Public Employees. It reports to university president Mamdouh Shoukri.

The Canadian Federation of Students devotes time to the study of violence against women. Vanessa Hunt, deputy chair and York alumna, stresses in an interview that sexism, misogyny and racism all play roles in sexual assault cases. The federation created the “No Means No” campaign almost 20 years ago to help empower women.

However, no matter how diligently York works on safety issues, emailed comments from Walls show it’s often a game of catch-up. There are always recommendations. After the university commissioned a third-party safety audit in 2009, a report two years later listed 101 recommendations . “The university is working diligently to implement these,” said a statement on York’s website.

Perhaps it’s not so much catch-up as fine tuning, but Walls cites several areas where work is still being done. Some raise questions about whether officials missed the forest for the trees.

She lauds York Security Services, noting the number of security officials in their grey uniforms has increased by 25 per cent in two years and adds: “We are also in the process of restructuring our security shifts to provide more optimal presence of security staff on campus.”

Walls wrote that dedicated security staffers have been posted in the food court from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. for two weeks following the shootings “until needs can be re-evaluated.”

Over the same re-evaluation period, she said there will also be two more Toronto Police Service officers patrolling campus. Toronto police established a “community response team about six months ago of six or so officers who are dedicated to York and the immediate adjacent neighbourhood,” according to Walls. The team patrols and responds to calls on campus.

“York Security officials work closely with Toronto Police Service officers on a regular basis,” wrote Walls, “and there is regular police presence on York’s campus.”

In a letter posted online after the shootings, York president Shoukri said there were discussions with the student centre about increasing the number of security cameras on site. Wrote Shoukri: “The safety and security of the York University community are paramount.”

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His letter noted that university officials are part of the police investigation into the shootings, a point reiterated by Walls to the Star. She said Shoukri planned to meet with police “to conduct a full debrief of the incident and to discuss and provide joint recommendations to improve campus safety and security.”

Such close and ongoing involvement of Toronto police on campus creates its own problems.

In an open letter in November 2012, a student committee on community, accessibility and equity (ACE), said “solving problems by a partnership with the police” was not the answer. It’s given officers the right to “stop and question black male students on campus without lawful cause.”

A month earlier in 2012, the university reported that four incidents that “qualify as sexual assault under the criminal code” had occurred since that July.

The open letter criticized York’s decision to email a report to all students and faculty following each incident, describing what happened, the likelihood of reoccurrence and a description of the suspect. The committee called the security bulletins “vague . . . with incredibly problematic descriptions that can be applied to any black male.”

As a result, York University amended the security reports to remove suspect descriptions that didn’t provide sufficient, specific information, but “only served to describe a large segment of a racialized community.”

In interviews with the Star, students reflect these tensions. Some believe that crime at the Keele campus is exacerbated by its location in the Jane/Finch neighbourhood where there’s been a high incidence of gun and gang violence, as well as youth homicides .

Vello argues just the opposite, that the perception that the university must be influenced by neighbourhood problems makes students adopt skewed beliefs. She says “the issue of crime on campus is given more attention because York is located near Jane and Finch. You don’t hear the same kind of thing about U of T, for example.”

It’s true that gun violence has been a problem in the northwest Jane/Finch neighbourhood, but community organizers who work with youth in the area often criticize what they see as a tendency in the media to report crimes without examining root causes such as poverty.

Nevertheless, students arriving at the Keele campus with its huge empty spaces aren’t particularly concerned about sociological analysis when they don’t feel safe. The Keele campus covers 185 hectares and dwarfs the smaller, midtown Glendon campus of 33 hectares that for the most part escapes negative publicity of crime on campus.

“I don’t feel as safe as I did before the shootings,” says Preethu Kaduppil, at the student centre. She lives on campus and uses programs such as goSAFE, but says the practice of leaving room doors unlocked in residence has changed over the last week or so.

Perhaps, though, it’s unrealistic to think that such a carefree mindset can exist at any big city university in the 21st century. It may be, too, that a food court in the student centre must have a high security presence, including the latest in video surveillance.

The next step, which would undoubtedly be a gigantic hassle for a busy university, could be airport-style screening in which students, faculty members and their bags are checked upon entering every building, including the student centre with its food court.