As chair of Student Government’s university affairs committee, Chelsea Eret sees her role as keeping an eye and ear out for issues on campus.

To do this, Student Government will host its annual campus safety walk on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 6:30 p.m. The walk will last for roughly two hours, and students, faculty and staff are allotted the opportunity to walk the campus with the Iowa State Police Department in an effort to address safety concerns. 

This could include, Eret said, discussing where some areas might need better lighting or better sidewalks. The aim being to discover these issues and concerns early on. 

“We’ll have the perspective of some campus partners, Iowa State Police and students … what might feel unsafe to one student is maybe something that someone else could have overlooked,” Eret said. 

In addition to the campus safety walk organized by Student Government, the Ames City Council will be hosting a Campustown safety walk within the next several weeks. 

“On campus will have 12 different areas that we are working with the police on to look at,” Eret said.

While this is Eret’s first year working on and attending the safety walk, she said historically it has had a pretty good turnout.

As for issues that have been addressed in the past, such as lighting, she is hoping to have the Student Government readdress them during her term, as well. 

“There are some issues that have been highlighted in the past but maybe not completed or seen to fruition and this will be an opportunity to hopefully pick some of those up and keep going with them,” Eret said. “Or [just] finding new issues.”

In hosting the campus safety walk, Eret is hoping that it will show that campus leaders, such as Student Government and the Iowa State Police Department, are taking a holistic and proactive approach in addressing campus concerns. 

“There are people on campus working toward safety and that it’s not a totally reactive thing,” Eret said. “I’m hoping this serves as an indication that we are trying to be proactive and that students want to be proactive.”

For those hoping to attend the campus safety walk, it will begin outside the north entrance of the Armory building near the large garage door at 6:30 p.m. 

“I’m looking forward to being able to see the different people who come. I’m assuming the people who are participating probably have something that they’ve experienced on campus where they felt unsafe — they have a reason and they have an issue they want to address,” Eret said.