The system does not yet include all campus organizations but it can be expanded. Virginia Tech was one of four state schools honored recently with a 1991 Governor's Community Crime Prevention Recognition Award the second time in three years the university won the award. Leigh Collins, Virginia Tech's crime prevention and community relations officer, accepted the award at a luncheon in Richmond. We strive to get people to take steps to prevent a crime before it actually happens. The best way is through education.
Crime is attacked in a variety of ways.
The Virginia Tech Police Department Crime Prevention unit conducts forums and seminars on issues such as personal and property safety, and also coordinates training for student employees, such as resident advisors and night monitors. Virginia Tech also has instituted a safety escort service, a dorm watch program, and the Sexual Assault Victim Education and Support Program, which uses peer counselors for education and staffs a 24-hour support and crisis hotline. The university also installed 55 direct-dial telephones across campus that connect to the police department as soon as the receiver is lifted. The growing need for a Fall Commencement was underscored Dec. 14, when 670 Virginia Tech graduates, a 65 percent increase over the number who attended the first ceremony in 1990, showed up at Cassell Coliseum to accept their degrees. The response this year was so large, the ceremony had to be moved from Burruss auditorium to Cassell.