On Oct. 10, my roommate and I locked up and readied our room in Lyon Court, a Pomona freshman residence hall, before leaving for fall break. When we returned on Oct. 14 and reopened our locked door, we found our lights on, our windows opened, our laundry moved, our vacuum used and a perfume missing. My roommate’s computer had a notification displaying too many login attempts. Someone had been in our room.
We tried to justify it by saying it was one of our friends, but it was quickly apparent someone unknown to us had been in our dorm — for hours.
We called Campus Security, who took a report and told us there was nothing to do. “If it becomes a pattern, we can do something about it,” they said to us while we stood there describing the break-in.
We requested the camera footage from around the area but never received a response. Pomona was willing to identify masked students who participated in the Oct. 7 protest at Carnegie Hall using wi-fi log-ins and security camera tracking, but neglected us when it came to our safety.
Clearly, Pomona’s administration and Campus Security have the means to do some investigative work.
Despite Pomona College’s increased spending on Campus Security in response to campus protests — also restricting key card building access and an anti-masking rule — the college is taking less initiative to ensure the safety of their students than to increase their ability to monitor us. When Lyon residents actually needed protection, that security presence was nowhere to be found. Pomona is responsible for our safety, and should primarily use their institutional resources to protect, not prosecute, their students.
Two weeks later, another stranger took my neighbor’s food from the communal fridge, used our bathroom shower multiple times in one week and screamed at one of our neighbors. We called Campus Security again, who delegated the situation to the Claremont Police Department. They gave the person a warning and escorted them out.
I wish I could say that was the end of Lyon’s fall semester incidents. Strangers, streakers and more seemed to be the new weekly story among Lyon residents. It became a pattern where students barely needed to react anymore, aside from exhausted, knowing glances.
A recent TSL article covers the most recent — and arguably most violating — incident yet: an intruder masturbated in a Lyon bathroom while a resident was brushing their teeth.
An email to South Campus residents signed by Dean Josh Eisenberg, Assistant Director of Residence Life Ryan Haynes and Title IX Coordinator Destiny Marrufo assured students that Campus Security “takes these incidents very seriously and is committed to responding in a timely manner.” Yet, as my roommate and I experienced firsthand, we were left in the dark following our incident.
Instead of acknowledging the apparent lapses in security, we received a list of recommendations that placed the burden on students: “Refrain from letting unknown individuals into residence halls” and “make sure doors are securely closed and unpropped.”As if we weren’t already doing that.
These statements imply that safety is a personal responsibility rather than an institutional one, ignoring the systemic failures that allow these incidents to happen.
By the time this article was written, on Feb. 8, another trespasser had been escorted out of Lyon in the morning. And at 4 a.m. the next day, another incident.
It is absurd to pretend that these incidents are the results of repeated student mistakes rather than a larger security failure — especially when we were already astutely aware of keeping our doors locked. Additionally, there is no other dorm on South Campus facing this issue. What is the probability that these separate incidents, occurring only in Lyon, are entirely unconnected? Infinitesimal.
Campus Security’s failure to act after the initial break-in allowed every violation since.
Living in Lyon has become an experience of perpetual vigilance. Residents are constantly aware of their surroundings, check and recheck locks and feel uncomfortable when strangers walk by. At this point, we no longer feel safe showering in our dorms.
Campus Security has only begun taking meaningful action within the past two days, checking in with impacted residents and stationing a car outside overnight. This raises the question: Why did it have to get to this point?
This reactive approach — waiting for incidents to accumulate before stepping up — suggests a failure of the system to prioritize student safety from the start.
‘If this becomes a pattern, we’ll do something’ is a weak deflection of responsibility. It’s a failure of a security structure that should have been protecting students before the situation spiraled. Following a string of crimes at CMC in 2018, Scripps did “safety sweep checks” and reevaluated their lock-out policy. While not perfect, Scripps took a step in the right direction: prevention rather than reaction.
Pomona’s improvements in security should not solely be responses to crises — it sets a dangerous precedent for crises to act as excuses for hardened security procedures, like surveillance. I encourage Campus Security and the administration not to allow their recent actions to be solely a reactionary change. Encouraging students to keep their doors closed and sending apologies are insufficient — there is an underlying problem. In the meantime, students, still take steps to protect yourselves and our community.
I’m not advocating for a surveillance state, but rather for more proactive security measures and transparency from administration. Students deserve to feel safe without constantly worrying about whether their dorm is secure or if they’ll be left in the dark after an incident. It’s about creating a system where security is a priority before problems escalate, not just responding after the fact.
Pomona cannot keep ignoring this problem. The administration has the power to make meaningful changes.
The question is: how many more students have to feel violated before they do?
Sarah Russo PO ’28 is a first-year PPE major at Pomona College living in Lyon. She loves going to the gym with friends, going to the Claremont farmers market, and creating photo walls.
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