Harvard University students are on edge after a female undergraduate was groped in Harvard Yard on Saturday night – the seventh sexual assault that has occurred in the area since October.
The most recent assault took place near Harvard Hall in Harvard Yard at around 9 p.m. Saturday, according to an advisory from the Harvard University Police Department. The victim “was approached by a man on a bicycle who groped her from behind” and fled into Harvard Square, the advisory said.
The first three incidents occurred a few miles from campus, but “in the vicinity” of some university housing, according to Steven Catalano, public information officer for the HUPD. The last four incidents have occurred in Harvard Square.
Five of the attacks have been classified as indecent assaults, one as an assault with intent to rape and the latest as indecent assault and battery, according to the Cambridge Police Department website.
Descriptions of the suspects vary widely, and HUPD and Cambridge police are investigating whether or not the assaults are connected.
There have been no arrests in the incidents, according to an email from CPD Public Information Officer Frank Pasquarello. He could not be reached for further comment.
Catalano said HUPD is responding to the incidents by providing the community with “general prevention and vigilance information” about the assaults as well as increased patrols on campus.
HUPD has posted advisories for the incidents on its website and included a link on the Harvard home page to the advisories, Catalano said. Police have also informed The Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, and emailed advisories to administrators on campus who are responsible for forwarding the emails to students through “email trees,” in order to alert students.
“We’re fairly comfortable that all undergraduate students and graduate students are receiving advisories by email,” Catalano said.
The advisories suggest students travel on four routes the university has designated as safe pathways, avoid traveling alone at night, stay aware of their surroundings and use university shuttle buses and escort vans.
The shuttle buses frequently travel around campus and the escort service will pick up students if they call. Catalano said students can also call HUPD to get rides if it is late and they have no other way to get home.
“I think whenever possible [students] should really be walking with someone or waiting for the shuttle buses,” he said.
Catalano said students often complain about waiting for the shuttle buses, but he said it is important to do so to remain safe.
If students walk, Catalano said they should not talk on a cell phone or listen to music. Walking confidently and briefly making eye contact with anyone a student passes can deter an attacker.
“Just that eye contact alone could send a message,” he said.
Susan Marine, director of the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response at Harvard, said her office saw an increase in calls last semester seeking advice about how to avoid being assaulted.
“The randomness of the events … doesn’t make it easy to give students advice [on] how to protect themselves,” she said.
Marine said students should take the usual common-sense precautions recommended by HUPD and remember they are in an urban setting.
“I think some students feel Cambridge feels artificially safer than Boston, and I don’t know why that is,” she said.
But Marine said most sexual assaults are perpetrated by assailants victims know and are not random events like the recent assaults around Harvard.
“We don’t want students to get this sort of false sense of violence,” she said.
Harvard freshman Diana Montoya is one of two student representatives serving on an ad hoc safety committee. She said the group, which includes members of the faculty and staff, the police chief and school deans, meets “when necessary,” and has met to discuss the recent assaults.
The committee is trying to get the word out to students about walkways that are designated as safe, to check blue light phones to make sure they all work and to increase police presence, Montoya said.
She said she feels safe because she knows about all of the precautions being taken. But Montoya said the committee has received emails from students expressing frustration that they do not know what the university is doing about the situation.
“There are so many systems out there, and people don’t know about them,” she said.
Emma Beavers, a Harvard sophomore, said she is “definitely more cautious walking around at night” now, but she is not preoccupied by fears of an attack.
“Everybody seems to forget we’re in a city because everybody around you is a student,” she said. “I guess I’ve just tried to take a common sense approach to it because I don’t know what I can do besides that.”
Beavers said she tries to walk with others if she is out at night, but there are some streets with which she is familiar that she feels are still safe to walk on.
Harvard sophomore Nura Hossainzadeh said she is not surprised by the attacks.
“I’m not surprised in the sense that I think there are areas around campus where attackers could attack if they wanted to,” she said, noting that people who walk in dark, unpopulated areas put themselves in dangerous situations that can be avoided.
“I usually make sure to go out at a time when there’s a lot of people out and on safe streets because I think that’s the best way to go about it,” she said.
Hossainzadeh said she is studying for finals, which start on Saturday for Harvard students, in her room instead of in the library, partly so she can avoid the 15-minute walk from the library to her dorm.
Still, Hossainzadeh said she would not hesitate to walk from her room to 7-Eleven to get something to eat at 2 a.m., which would require a walk down a well-lit but not well-populated street.
“I don’t think it’s happening with a frequency that it’s terrible to go out at that hour,” she said.