The Sarge will make a comeback this spring, though Veishea will not.

The ISU Police Department will hold its annual spring safety campaign in an effort to keep students engaged with the department and think twice about engaging in risky behaviors.

“We typically launch the spring campaign in cahoots with the Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It gets us out one time and we get to hit two big topics,” said officer Anthony Greiter, who is in charge of community engagement for ISU Police.

The spring campaign keeps the ISU Police Department — along with the Ames Police Department, ISU Police’s partners in the campaign — engaged with students and the Ames community. Greiter keeps students engaged in the campaign by handing out T-shirts with the campaign’s theme as well as using Twitter and Facebook to keep students talking about the campaign’s theme.

“It’s always been a big goal of ours to be approachable,” Greiter said. “We have a great relationship with our community and we want to keep it that way. We want people to keep coming to us.”

Like last year’s theme, the campaign will center on Sarge Says with Greiter offering advice and warnings through social media using Sarge Says.

This year’s T-shirts will feature “a little bit of edge to try to get people’s attention,” Greiter said. The shirts say “Keep calm and B.S.,” with B.S. standing for “be smart, be safe, be sober.”

“I have no problem calling people out and saying come over and get a free T-shirt. That’s what college is for,” Greiter said.

On Wednesday, April 1, and Thursday, April 9, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m., Ames and ISU police officers will be stationed on the south side of Parks Library next to a squad car handing out T-shirts. In order to get a free T-shirt, students must prove they have the Ames and ISU Police non-emergency number saved as a contact in their phone for easy access in case of an emergency.

Greiter said advocates from ACCESS Assault Care Center will also be available to talk to students about sexual assault prevention during those times.

In the past, the campaign was introduced in conjunction with Veishea to keep students practicing safe partying. Greiter said since there is no specific week the departments expect higher-risk behavior, they will spread out the engagement events throughout the month.

“We don’t have one event that we’re targeting any more. It’s always been a spring campaign, but we have put extra focus on Veishea for obvious reasons,” Greiter said. “People kind of see it as a party week whether that was the intent or not and so we knew there was the potential for more of a concern. We wanted to amp up our contact with people prior to that.” 

Students, such as CAs, have benefitted from having each department’s numbers saved in their phone, Greiter said.

“While I don’t have a scientific way to measure it, I think that the approachability of our officers shows a lot,” Greiter said. “Students are willing to come up to our officers to interact with us in a positive way whether they have a problem or not. Every year at the spring campaign event, I’ve had at least two or three people come up and say, ‘I’m so glad I put this number in my phone. I called you for this or that, or I have you on speed dial because I’ve called so many times.’”

Greiter said both Ames and ISU Police want students to keep safety a priority.

“Students may choose to drink and I get that, as long as they do it safely,” Greiter said. “They need to use their heads even when they’re not in class. As long as they do it in an intelligent manner, we’re going to have a much safer community.”