To effectively establish where on campus may be unsafe, Student Government and the Iowa State Police Department, as well as Facilities Planning and Management, teamed up Thursday night to search for areas of concern.

The annual campus safety walk began at 6:30 p.m. It was attended by more than 20 people who split up into teams of 10 to investigate different areas of campus.

The teams were searching for lights that were dim or burnt out, areas that were not lit at all, unkept bushes and trees and sidewalks and ramps that were uneven or unaccessible. 

“Walkways, sidewalks or anything that would have to do with access — so if you couldn’t get a wheelchair up a ramp or there’s a crack, something like that — note it,” Iowa State Police Ofc. Elliot Florer said. “And then just general safety concerns.”

Participants were divided into teams of two and three and were given clipboards to write down issues they came across.

When walking, Student Government director of the University Affairs committee Chelsea Eret and Speaker Zoey Shipley observed several areas on the west side of campus that raised questions.

Concerns included lights out near building doors, generally dark areas and bushes that looked semi-overgrown. 

While Eret organized the event, it was her first time participating. Overall, she felt it was successful. 

“I noticed it’s very intuitive when you’re walking around, you know when you feel unsafe,” Eret said. “For Zoey and I when we were walking, we noticed things at the end that we didn’t notice at the beginning, so we were able to go back and say ‘Now the two of us feel unsafe, we should write that down.'”

A takeaway, Eret said, is that observing safety concerns is something students, faculty and staff can do whenever they are on campus.

“If they feel unsafe because of lighting, accessibility issues, or trees coming over a sidewalk — that is something they can reach out to Iowa State Police or Student Government [about],” she said. 

Others in attendance included Student Government chief of staff Jacob Zirkelbach and at-large university affairs committee member Andrew Nurse. For Zirkelbach, this was his third year participating in the walk and Nurse’s first. 

“It’s a cool thing to do after hours with people,” Zirkelbach said. “It’s a good thing to bond over — you’re doing something productive and it’s something that is tangible too that you can see the benefits of.”

Nurse reiterated this, saying that it helps improve awareness as well. 

“My takeaway from the safety walk was that it’s a pretty safe place but there is definitely some areas that can be improved and it’s good that we have these types of things to improve our student body’s safety awareness,” Nurse said. 

Overall, those that participated felt campus was pretty safe but could always use improvement — particularly where lights were out and sidewalks were uneven. 

“There weren’t a whole lot of major concerns other than lights being out. Most of them [however] if there was one out in the area, the rest of them were on,” Sen. Caroline Warmuth said.

For those on campus that see a safety concern or issue, they can report it on the Facilities, Planning and Management website. 

Within the coming weeks, city council and the Ames Police Department will be hosting a Campustown safety walk as well.