Volume 67, Issue 7

Two IHP Apartments Burglarized in Only Ten Days 
Students Demand Safety, New Dorm
by Kevin Cyrulnik

For the second time in two weeks, one of Yeshiva’s undergraduate Independent Housing Program (IHP) apartments was burglarized in broad daylight.  Although Yeshiva administrators anticipate that they will, indeed, catch the perpetrators, the victimized students, as well as many of their peers, are not in the least bit content with the current situation.  “We need a new dorm and it’s as simple as that,” said one of the victims.

At around noon on Thursday morning, December 19, Yeshiva College junior Daniel Strauchler returned to his IHP apartment on 186th Street to find that his door had been chained from the inside.  Assuming that one of his roommates, YC junior Yoni Miller and YC sophomore Cary Maister, was inside, he began to knock incessantly on the door.  After a while, Strauchler grew suspicious and decided to call Miller. 

The two soon realized that “something was going on” and immediately called the building’s super.  “This should not be something that a college student has to deal with,” said Miller.  Once the super arrived, he immediately called Yeshiva security, assuming the worst-case scenario.  Yeshiva Security, which arrived shortly after the call, then called the local police authorities.  Together, they entered the apartment, confirming Miller’s suspicions; the place had been ransacked, and many of their expensive electronics had been damaged.  

It is believed that the alleged criminals entered the apartment through the bathroom window, which sits right near the fire escape.  According to Yeshiva’s Chief of Security Donald Sommers, the police speculated that the window was left unlocked, thus enabling the thieves to force the top of the window open.  All presume that the robbers left the apartment after being startled by Strauchler’s knocking.

 Sommers attributed partial blame to the students who “constantly neglect” to lock their windows, especially the windows adjacent to the fire escape.  To that end, security has distributed fliers, informing students in IHP to lock their windows. But the issue goes much deeper than that.

An all too common phenomenon at Yeshiva, many students are assigned to an IHP apartment instead of living with the majority of Yeshiva students in a dormitory.  Due to Yeshiva’s burgeoning enrollment numbers, however, there are literally no available beds in any of the three current dorms.  According to Ronald Lamb, Director of Housing, there are 1081 students living on campus, but only 856 beds in the dorms.  This forces 225 students, amassing to one quarter of the student body, into apartments. 

In addition to the isolation felt by many students living in the apartments, a primary complaint about the IHP has been the lack of a Yeshiva network connection.  Besides for not being able to share and download fellow Yeshiva students’ files, undergrads in the IHP were not accommodated with Ethernet or with some other fast Internet connection.  This essentially forced students to spend anywhere from $40 to $70 per month, above and beyond ordinary living fees, to be able to get Internet access.

While these factors all contribute to student frustration with the IHP, the most significant gripe is security-related. Simply put, students do not feel as safe in the apartments as they would in the dorms, and incidents throughout the past few years have proven that this concern is legitimate. Besides for safety issues that arose near University housing in November of 2001, students have now suffered two burglaries. And Sommers’ claim that Yeshiva security guards have been placed on high alert to keep their eyes open for anything out of the ordinary just does not assuage student apprehension. “There’s no guard at the entrance to the building, like in the dorms,” points out Miller.   “If someone wishes to get in the building, someone will let him in.”

Miller, along with his victimized roommates and many others, has called for Yeshiva to finally step up and build the new dorm, of which rumors have been circulating for quite some time.  Living in the dorms is the only sure-fire way to keep students safe, according to Miller.

Yeshiva’s Director of Supporting Services Administration Jeffrey Rosengarten adamantly disagrees.  When asked if he concedes to an existing security difference between the dorms and apartments, he replied with an emphatic “none at all. Crime is going to happen wherever you are.  Our job is to try and stop it,” said Rosengarten.  He said that Yeshiva is using tactical methods to prevent crimes of this nature from happening in the future, but in no way sees a correlation between burglaries and living in the apartments. 

Unfortunately for the students, many Yeshiva administrators seem to agree with Rosengarten’s assessment.  Despite the fact that a break-in, very similar to this one, happened to another Yeshiva student’s IHP apartment on 187th Street, just one-week prior, nothing tangible has yet to be been done.  In fact, Miller laments that had Yeshiva informed him of the other IHP robbery, he probably would have made sure that his windows were locked.  Sommers says that they are devising a plan to secure the windows facing the fire escape in a better fashion, and for now, the students are heavily cautioned to lock their windows and “keep an eye out.” 

These administrators’ views notwithstanding, students still feel unsafe, and hearing Security claim that students are just as safe in the apartments as they are in the dorms – whether or not this claim is true – does nothing to ease this feeling.  These security issues, coupled with the other problems with the IHP, have turned the possibility of a new Wilf Campus dorm into a necessity, as far as students as concerned.

Indeed, at a meeting with student leaders a few weeks ago, Yeshiva President-elect Richard Joel was asked about whether he would consider building a new on-campus dorm. He responded relatively positively, by promising that the dorm problem will be something that he will look into when he assumes office. Summing up popular student sentiment was one student leader who said, “Our only way out of the IHP problems is if Richard Joel decides to grant us a new dorm.” ♦

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