Three female students, since the end of March, have reported their pictures being taken while showering in West Tower.

The students described masculine hands holding a camera above the shower stall door, according to Bill Ferguson, associate director of the Office of Public Safety. The most recent incident took place at 10:15 a.m. April 19 on the seventh floor. The female student screamed when she saw the camera, and the perpetrator fled the scene. Similar incidents took place also in the late morning of March 28 and April 5, on the 13th and 11th floors.

Ferguson said Public Safety has not identified a perpetrator and does not assume that the events are connected.

“It’s hard to say, since we don’t have a detailed description,” he said.

Ferguson said he recalls similar occurrences in the past at Ithaca College.

“It happened a few times but not to any great extent,” he said. “This is the first year that we’ve had this many in one residence hall.”

Ferguson said a female resident of West Tower reported a camera being pointed at her while showering at 10 a.m. May 9, 2008. Unlike last year, Public Safety did not issue a campuswide alert because the incidents were confined to one residence hall. A letter was sent to the female residents of West Tower explaining the recent problems this semester.

Bonnie Prunty, director of residential life and judicial affairs, said the Office of Residential Life began initiatives to avoid further problems such as installing shower curtains to fill the space between the ceiling and the stall door and converting the Towers to card-access only.

Public Safety will use the card-access system to help find the perpetrator.

“We’re not trying to monitor where people are,” Prunty said. “But in a situation like this, [the card keys] give us some good information about whether there’s anybody on the floor at the time that’s not a community member and doesn’t live there.”

Sophomore Julia Dunn, the resident assistant on the 13th floor of West Tower, where the first incident took place, said three quarters of her residents responded to a floor survey that the curtains have not made them feel safer when showering.

Freshman Evelyn Quinn, a resident of the 13th floor, said her floormates do not use the buddy lookout system their resident assistant and Public Safety suggested, but they try to be more aware of whom is in the bathroom.       

“When people take a shower, they go to their roommate and say if you hear somebody screaming, then it’s probably me getting my picture taken,” she said.

Ferguson said Public Safety does not have many options for solving the case other than increasing patrol rounds in West Tower and encouraging greater student vigilance.

“More awareness is the best prevention in this type of case,” he said.