Students are wary of campus security, often without realizing they exist to benefit students, said ASUI President Pro Tempore Anthony Filicetti. Soon, however, he said he hopes that will change.
Campus security is collaborating with ASUI representatives in order to become more visible as a positive resource for students on campus.
“Overall, we feel like there is a negative idea we have of campus security — one where they weren’t visible and students had no idea what they did,” Filicetti said. “We as a senate just wanted to open a dialogue with campus security, and relay the information back to our student living groups, and overall try and create a more positive image for students.”
According to Director of Campus Se- curity Penny Martinez, 30 percent of stu- dents polled by ASUI expressed concerns regarding general campus safety, and this is what prompted ASUI to reach out to campus security.
Martinez said their collaboration with ASUI started before winter break, following a national call to action from the White House against domestic and sexual violence. Campus security had prepared an informational slideshow and was planning on showing it at a tabling event — this event coincided with Safe and Sexy Week.
“(ASUI) gave us a bag of condoms to hand out,” Martinez said. “It didn’t go over very well, but it was actually quite humorous — we started spreading them out on the table, and then students actually did stop to check out our slideshow.”
Campus security already provides several resources to students, such as buddy apps for smartphones and a program called Safewalk. But Filicetti said students don’t use the program, because it makes them nervous, or they simply don’t know about it.
“It’s a great way for students to get home safely,” he said. “(Security) told us that walking with campus security, there’s a much lower chance that a cop on Greek Row or around campus will approach you and ask to see your ID — campus security doesn’t ID anyone they pick up, and honestly it makes it a lot safer to get home.”
Campus security guards have emergency training, CPR training and basic EMT skills, Filicetti said.
Now that they’ve brainstormed with ASUI, Martinez said, security plans to go forward with ideas they discussed on their own — such as tabling outside the Idaho Commons and offering things like free cocoa to get to know security guards. They also hope to put pictures and profiles of every guard on their website to give students the opportunity to get to know them that way, as well.
“We really just want to make it more personal,” Filicetti said. “There are campus security guards who are 5-foot-2 and 6-foot-7 — it’s a whole, big spectrum of people who work for them, and some of them can look intimidating. But they’re nice people. There are student campus security guards, and campus security guards who are graduates of UI, so hopefully these are going to be great people to work with in the next few years.”
