Student Government made a proposal to ISU administration to add a multicultural liaison to the ISU Police Department in its latest resolution.

Latinos United for a Change, formerly known as Students Against Bigotry, made the original proposal at an open forum for multicultural students earlier this month, said Michael Snook, vice speaker of the senate.

Along with the multicultural liaison, Student Government and Latinos United for a Change would like to see additional training for officers as well.

“Currently, there is an LGBTIQA liaison officer as a part of ISU Police Department force, and they all undergo the LGBTIQA safe zone training program put on by LGBT Student Services,” Snook said. “There was a desire from [Latinos United for a Change] that there be an addition of a multicultural liaison officer to the Iowa State Police Department force and that [officers] also undergo a similar sensitivity training.”

Snook said ISU Police has expressed some interest in the proposal.

“I know Chief Jerry Stewart said that’s definitely something that they could look into at that open forum, so we knew that there was interest at the very least exploring adding this position at the ISU Police Department,” Snook said.

Aaron DeLashmutt, deputy chief of ISU Police, said the department has been working on putting the pieces together for the position.

“Well obviously we recognize this is important and we want our community to feel safe,” DeLashmutt said. “So we recognize the need to work with many organizations is important to accomplish that. So that is kind of why we have put a lot of things in place, we are always open to expanding that and doing more.”

He added that part of the issue is getting people to feel comfortable approaching officers when they have concerns.

“A lot of it is just interacting with the people there, getting them used to seeing us and comfortable talking to us so that if they do have concerns they can talk to us,” DeLashmutt said.

The Ames Police Department would also like to work with international students to try and establish a relationship.

“We’ve seen some international students be victims of crimes. Some of these scams will target international students,” said Jason Tuttle, investigations commander for Ames Police. “If we just kind of get a voice out to them they will feel more comfortable reporting crimes and they’ll feel more comfortable interacting with officers.”

Snook said Student Government is now coordinating with the administration to start pushing this forward, so they can start getting student feedback and clarify to the students what this position will be.