A spate of recent attacks waged on Northwestern students — purse snatchings, muggings and armed robberies — has lead Evanston city officials and the Northwestern administration to seek out ways to protect their students.

Now, an idea from one student is on track to possible implementation.

Christina Appleton, a Northwestern junior and former senator in the Northwestern University Associated Student Government, introduced a student government bill three weeks ago that would purchase 1,000 keychain safety alarms and distribute them to students free of charge.

The bill was to be voted on Monday night.

Last year, student government senator John Marino authored a bill that provided 5,000 safety whistles for Northwestern students.

Of the whistles, 3,000 were given away last spring and the remaining 2,000 were passed out to incoming freshman during Northwestern’s Welcome Week, Appleton said.

The recent crime wave, however, has spurred her to seek the keychain alarms as a means of increasing student safety.

“Student safety should be the first priority of this university,” Appleton said.

“If students aren’t feeling safe, everything should stop. These alarms are just one addition the university can take to make students feel safe.”

Appleton said she got the idea when she considered purchasing an alarm for herself.

She then decided that it would benefit the Northwestern campus if everyone had one.

The alarms Appleton’s bill would provide come from Personal Alarm Co. Ltd., a London-based personal safety company.

When a student feels threatened, he or she pushes the alarm, which then emits a 138-decible noise, the intensity of a “loud rock concert,” according to Appleton.

Including shipping, the alarms would cost an individual student approximately $25, but if purchased in bulk, they would only cost around $6 per alarm, Appleton said.

The $6,000 cost of providing the alarms has caused some members of student government to balk, Appleton said.

Appleton’s bill calls for Northwestern University to provide the funds to purchase the alarms, perhaps using some of the $1.5 billion the university reaped from the recent fundraiser Campaign Northwestern.

Some Northwestern student senators have expressed concern that the money would be taken from some other budget at the expense of other programs and activities.

Others have suggested that the money could be put to better use. Appleton, who said she did not anticipate such resistance to her bill, disagrees.

“For $6, we couldn’t get anything else,” Appleton said. “It’s more economically sound to get these alarms.”

Another source of concern for some is that alarms will be misused and students will use them to create excessive noise.

Appleton dismissed the idea, saying she doubted students would treat them like toys.

Evanston city manager Roger Crum said that, given Northwestern students’ relatively clean behavioral record, he didn’t think the alarms would create a problem.

“We have a few party problems, but other than that, the students here are a pretty good group,” he said.

Appleton said she was discouraged that the government was delaying addressing her bill.

“I feel like my student government has its priorities wrong,” she said. “That to me is disheartening.”

Two men were arrested Friday in connection with the crimes.