Nearly two years ago, Anthony Greiter, community outreach officer with the ISU Police Department, brought the international campaign “Start by Believing” to campus.

“Start by Believing,” a public awareness campaign designed by End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI), works to change the thinking surrounding sexual assault and rape.

“The concept behind “Start by Believing” is pretty simple,” Greiter said. “What it says is that when somebody tells us that they were sexually assaulted or raped, instead of doubting initially, which is what society has somehow been trained to do, we merely believe them.”

Greiter first heard about the campaign while at a EVAWI conference, where he went to a workshop on how to bring the campaign to one’s own community. After meeting with the speaker and brainstorming ideas, Greiter initiated the campaign at Iowa State.

His first act of the campaign? Handing out bookmarks.

ISU Police and Ames Police, along with other organizations across the community and campus will launch their spring campaign in front of the library Wednesday.

The event will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and students and community members will be able to sit in squad cars, get a free T-shirt, and ISU Dining will provide free cupcakes. A campus-wide photo on the steps of Beardshear will take place in support of the campaign.

This is the first year that ISU Police was able to take the campaign and hit the ground running with it, after officially become a “Start by Believing” agency last year.

Greiter said that while adopting the campaign is a public way to show its commitment to the philosophy, ISU Police has trained its officers to think that way long before it came to Iowa State.

“As a law enforcement agency, if we don’t start by believing, we will rarely get enough information to conduct an in-depth — quite frankly — a good investigation,” Greiter said, adding that victims of sexual assault have been through a very traumatic experience and that they are often not comfortable reporting to law enforcement.

“And if the first thing they hear from law enforcement or if the first impression that they get from law enforcement is a doubtful one, how willing are they going to be to tell us what happened? They’re not,” Greiter said.

The “Start by Believing” campaign addresses the importance of believing through its website, stating that there are many steps involved in the chain of support provided to a victim of sexual assault.

“Just a single negative reaction can mean the whole chain falls apart,” the website reads.

Greiter addressed the systematic behavior surrounded by not believing, which can be rooted from asking victim-blaming questions and inadvertently siding with the perpetrator.

“They ask the questions, ‘What were you wearing?’ ‘How much did you have to drink?’ ‘Are you sure?’ And we have to move past that mentality,” Greiter said.

The campaign will be the first event hosted this month by ISU Police, in accordance to its annual Spring campaign.

The Spring campaign will also focus on diversity and inclusion, commuter safety and a more generic focus on how to have a good time, but still be safe.

Eric Snyder, community resource officer with the Ames Police Department, discussed what he is most looking forward to about the campaign.

He said that while the spring campaign usually takes a more generic theme, typical alcohol education or safety awareness, he is looking forward to the topics they are covering.

“A lot of people look at sexual assault and sexual abuse differently,” Snyder said.

Snyder said it’s exciting to help people understand that most of the times victims who come forward are not lying and there a lot of resources out there besides law enforcement.

For the other events, such as the commuter safety campaign called “Bike, walk, drive smart,” the Ames Police Department will launch a web page, create videos, post media materials and posters, Snyder said.

“[It’s] exciting to involve the whole community, not just student population,” Snyder said.