UCAPD has worked with several campus organizations to prepare for National Campus Safety Awareness Month in September, with this year’s program featuring a specific theme each week.
The first week focuses on drug and alcohol awareness.
“UCA is a safe place and it takes all of us working together to keep it that way,” UCAPD Community Services Director Arch Jones said.
National Campus Safety Awareness Month will kick off with the 80 Proof Extravaganza. UCAPD, the Student Government Association and Student Wellness and Development worked together to put on the event.
Students can participate in putt putt golf, ping pong, bowling and pedal cart races at the 80 Proof Extravaganza. When racing pedal carts, students can put on goggles that simulate different vision impairment levels due to drinking alcohol. The extravaganza will be from 12-2 p.m. today at the Alumni Circle.
Also to promote drug and alcohol awareness, UCAPD will screen “The Truth About Alcohol” during x-period tomorrow in the Student Health Center 307.
The film features and explains different types of drugs and alcohol, explaining the harms they cause to the body and mind.
UCAPD will also test the campus UCAAlert system during x-period tomorrow. UCAPD will send out information for students, faculty and staff to sign up for UCAAlert, should they not get a text or call alert during the test.
“All of our incoming freshmen, and this has been the case for the last few years, when they meet with their adviser in the summer, that adviser gets a number and puts it in the system,” Jones said. “Technically, all of our freshmen should be in the system. With technology there’s things that happen sometimes, and that’s why we want to test [this system]right off the bat.”
Week two of campus safety month focuses on hazing prevention.
The week will kick off with Don’t Haze Me Bro!, where students, faculty and staff will have the opportunity to pledge to do his or her part in preventing and stopping hazing by signing and putting his or her fingerprints on a banner. Students, faculty and staff can sign the banner during x-period Sept. 9 at the amphitheater.
A continuation of Don’t Haze Me Bro! will follow during x-period Sept. 11, where students, faculty and staff can participate in an awareness walk at the football practice field.
From 7-8:30 p.m. Sept. 11, UCAPD will screen a hazing documentary in the College of Business Auditorium. The video addresses the national crisis of alcohol abuse and hazing that occurs across college campuses.
According to the flyers sent out by UCAPD, the film features pledge Gordie Bailey, who died in September 2004 “from alcohol poisoning after passing out on a couch in his fraternity house following a hazing initiation at the University of Colorado.”
Theft prevention and personal safety is week three’s focus.
Students, faculty and staff can register valuables during Operation ID, which takes place alongside Smart 911 and an active shooter screening video during x-period Sept. 16 in the College of Business Auditorium.
The active shooter video “Shots Fired on Campus: When Lightening Strikes!” can be accessed online at ucapd.net.
Brake for Bears will take place from 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. Sept. 17 at crosswalks across campus to promote pedestrian and crosswalk safety.
UCAPD will hold a situational awareness class during x-period Sept. 19 in the Student Center 225. This class will help inform students, faculty and staff on “the meaning of situational awareness and how to be proactive about personal safety,” according to the flyer.
Campus safety month ends at UCA with Sexual Assault Awareness Week. For this awareness week, UCAPD will screen “Stand Up and Speak Out,” a video that focuses on acquaintance rape, during x-period Sept. 23 and 25 in the Student Health Center 307.
A Clothes Line Project, sponsored by the UCA Counseling Center and Conway’s Women’s Shelter, focuses on domestic violence and will be held from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Sept. 23 at the amphitheater.
Also, an “interactive program that solicits input from the audience as to what constitutes a sexual assault,” called He Said/She Said, will be from 6-7 p.m. Sept. 24 in the Ida Waldron Auditorium.
Lastly, UCAPD will host a self defense class from 7-8 p.m. Sept. 25 in the Student Center 205A.
To help promote campus safety and improve interactions between UCAPD and students, Community Policing and Special Operations Coordinator Staff Sgt. Brad Moore will post campus crime updates to UCAPD’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
He said thusfar this initiative has shown a lot of interaction between the department and campus community, something the department has had difficulty with in the past.
“I love being able to talk to students,” he said. “I’ve really enjoyed that [interaction].”
