When asked about recent off-campus break-ins and suspicious activity incidents, assistant dean for off-campus student life and community engagement Peter Kwiatek stressed that Brighton is among the safest neighborhoods in Boston, with low violent crime rates.
In many break-ins, students left windows or doors unlocked, offering easy access to their homes, Kwiatek said at the UGBC Senate meeting Tuesday.
“The police talk about, ‘There’s no break-ins, there’s just entering,’ because frequently the properties [burglars] are going into are just open—doors are open, windows are open,” Kwiatek said.
Kwiatek and Corey Kelly, associate vice president and dean of students, visited the UGBC Senate to field questions from student senators and explain the goals and responsibilities of the Office of the Dean of Students (DOS).
Boston College pays the Boston Police Department (BPD) over $100,000 each academic year to patrol off-campus neighborhoods every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, according to Kwiatek and Kelly. When crimes occur, BPD details additional patrols to the area, they added.
“The police response is really impressive, and sometimes it’s not all that visible because they know if a cruiser is parked out front, someone’s probably not going to try it again, so they often work in an unmarked car,” Kelly said.
Kelly and Kwiatek said students in recent years have been more proactive in calling the police immediately after suspicious activity or break-ins occur—a shift that has led to more suspects being arrested.
“I can think of several instances recently where the police have caught the suspect, which is huge and didn’t used to happen,” Kelly said. “I’ve been here almost 12 years, and I think that’s a shifting trend. I think students are doing a really good job of being proactive and looking out for themselves.”
Kwiatek also highlighted how his office aims to support students navigating off-campus life by maintaining a database of available off-campus listings, helping resolve landlord disputes, and finding subtenants.
“We do a lot of things to help those students off campus feel like they’re not forgotten,” Kwiatek said. “They are on top of our mind, and we’re trying to think specifically for them so that they have a robust student experience.
When BC students think of the Office of the Dean Students (DOS), conduct hearings and sanctions often come to mind, Kwiatek said—but it doesn’t have to be that way, he emphasized.
“We are a central hub for care and support for students—no matter the issue,” Kwiatek said. “Things come to us that are very complicated, that don’t fit into one bucket … and our office is kind of the holder of that as we help students navigate their journey here.”
The DOS is comprised of four primary areas—student conduct, student support, disability services, and off-campus life, according to Kelly and Kwiatek.
“We really try our best to be proactive, to get in front of students, to help educate, inform, to hopefully prevent things from happening,” Kwiatek said.
As an example, he cited how the deans go from door to door reminding students of expectations in the leadup to weekends when many students host parties, such as Hallo-weekend or home football games.
Kelly said that while BC students often have high expectations and lofty goals, her office seeks to remind them that setbacks and struggles are normal during college, noting that the DOS case managers’ primary job is to support students through stressful situations and mental health struggles.
“A big part of what we do in our office is quite literally just normalize struggle,” Kelly said.
After the DOS presentation, the Senate voted to confirm Maaz Shaikh, Messina ’26, as the inaugural Messina College special interest representative and Reagan Marino, MCAS ’26, to the vacant Class of 2026 student seat.
