Last week, Bill Harwood, associate vice president of the Office of Safety and Security, notified the Bowdoin community of an attempted luring incident in which a prospective Bowdoin student was approached by a man who tried to lead them to his vehicle. This Wednesday, Harwood updated the community that the suspect was identified and that the case is now closed. While this case was resolved, this incident is one of many that have occurred on Bowdoin’s campus in recent months—a troubling trend.

In the past year, students on campus have formally reported having racial slurs shouted at them, being fired at with Airsoft guns, facing external threats and experiencing other disturbing incidents. Even beyond what has been formally reported, many Bowdoin students have been catcalled, approached by strangers or otherwise felt unsafe on Bowdoin’s campus or in Brunswick.

Listing out these events can feel uncomfortable, and we do not mean to suggest that Bowdoin or Brunswick are unsafe places. Rather, we are calling attention to these incidents because this is not normal for our campus. Instead of allowing these occurrences to fade into normalcy, we should continue to call attention to and report unsafe situations.

Students should not need to deal with slurs, threats of violence or harassment. These actions are not acceptable, and each one of them carries a weight that sinks into our campus conscience. If left unaddressed, such incidents have the ability to dampen campus culture from how we interact with our peers to how comfortable we feel walking around.

Additionally, while it is easy to treat Bowdoin as a private bubble separate from the outside world, it is a public campus, meaning anyone is allowed to be on campus property. While this connection to the public encourages Bowdoin’s collaboration with the surrounding community, it also makes it all the more important that we look out for each other.

For the past 20 years, former Associate Vice President of the Office of Safety and Security Randy Nichols fostered a student-first culture in which students felt safe to ask for help without necessarily worrying about being reprimanded. Nichols’ leadership made Security a familiar helping hand for students rather than a hawk-eyed institution of authority. We encourage our community to continue actively building trust between Security and students.

The recurrence of these safety incidents serves as a reminder to students of their role in maintaining campus safety. Students should feel safe and encouraged to report situations that seem unusual or threatening, even if they are not on College property.

We must continue to stay aware and alert at all times. If you notice something that doesn’t feel right, call Security. We must support each other and be willing to help those that we know and those we do not.

Anything less than a safe and comfortable environment for all is not normal and not okay. Raising awareness of these situations is vital to ensuring our campus remains a safe space. Keep reporting these incidents.

This editorial represents the majority opinion of the Editorial Board, which is composed of Julia Dickinson, Ella Ferrucci, Abdullah Hashimi, Aleena Nasruddin, Margaret Unger, Catalina Escobedo and Caitlin Panicker.