Interim Report: Writing Stuff Up

Date: Monday, October 28th from 7-9 p.m.

Group Members Present: Tayler, Maddie, Nick, Katie

This evening we wrote our Group Interim Report paper. We all contributed ideas while Tayler typed everything out. We felt it was important to meet in person to do this in order to make everything flow and ensure that everyone contributed ideas effectively. Annie was not at this meeting, but she sent a document containing lots of information that we selected a few little tidbits from.

The Short Presentation: It happened

Date: Wednesday, October 23rd from 6-10 p.m.

Group Members Present: All

On Wednesday evening, we all got together and got stuff done. We prepared the entire presentation, including notecards and PowerPoint slides. After prepping everything, we ran through the presentation a few times to ensure smooth transitions and good timing.

Are you aware of the UWRF Security Report?  Here's the link:
Annual Security Report

Presentation Stuff

Group members present: Tayler, Maddie, Katie

Tuesday, October 22 at 11 a.m.:

We constructed the rough outline for the presentation and began planning the PowerPoint. We also planned future meeting dates for both presentation preparation, expectations, and the upcoming process of writing the group paper.

INTERVIEWS

Group members present: Annie, Nick, Tayler, Katie

Thursday, October 17 at 3:15:

All the group members present went to University Police headquarters on the first floor of South Hall. Tayler stood as our group representative and asked the University Police officer different questions regarding sexual assaults on campus, campus safety, and trail safety specifically. The results will be discussed both in the paper and in further presentations.

After this interview, we went to the University Center and got in contact with a Student Senate member. We inquired if he knew the prices for both individual lights and the blue emergency stations. He did not know specifically, but rather he directed us to Paul Shepherd, the Director of Student Life. Paul was not in office, but his oh-so-helpful (just kidding, she was angry) desk assistant gave us his email address (which we are pretty sure is faulty). Either way, we will be getting in contact with both Paul Shepherd, the River Falls Police, and a plethora of Communications students.

The Planning Begins

Group members present: Maddie, Nick, Tayler, Annie, Katie

Thursday, October 17 at 11:45:

We discussed the people we would interview and the different questions we would pose. We came up with a list of possible questions to ask the University Police and a survey to send out to Communications students.

What We're Going To Do: The Short Presentation

Group Members Physically Present: Tayler, Nick, and Katie

Other Members' Contributions: Anne sent out a very detailed email including the different aspects needing to be covered and points of contact.

Problem: 

Lack of lighting and security measures on campus trails/sidewalks.

Cause and Effect:

• Lack of lighting and blue emergency stations lead to feelings of perceived danger and a general sense of a lack of security and possible assaults.
• Lack of lighting could lead to physical injury (separate from assault). If injury occurs, no emergency station exists to summon help.

Why: 

This is a topic that affects all UWRF students and even some faculty. These are also trails and areas that people frequently use.

Parameters:

• Lighting and blue emergency stations
• Changing the perception of the trail

Points of Contact: 

• Campus Security/Police: Why isn't there better lighting and security one these trails? Do you escort people if it's requested? Different reports of incidents occurring on these trails.
• River Falls Police: Why isn't there better lighting and security on these trails? What is the severity of not providing more security?
• UWRF Students: A poll or a survey inquiring about both perceived safety on these trails and a general knowledge and understanding.

Class Time Mins from 10/10/13
Maddie Pingry and Nick Reitberger were Present

Topic: How to make students feel safer on the trails around Campus

Absolute Criteria
Cost of lighting
Cost of blue lights
Cost of Cameras

Relative Criteria
Give the trail an actual name
Find out if the trails are unsafe

• Grace stressed that we need to think of a problem not just how to solve the problem right away
• She also said we need to find out if the trails are real unsafe
• Going off of that we changed the topic a little bit to make it more do able
• Our topic will be how we can make students feel safer on the trails

So some thing me and Nick thought about was:
Are the trails unsafe? Why do people think they`re unsafe? What can we do to make students feel more safe on the trails.

Topic: We Finally Committed

Group Two has decided! Oh, happy day!

For our semester long project, we will be focusing on campus safety. Too big of a topic, you say? We plan to focus on the different trails on the edge of campus by the softball and intramural fields.

We believe that the blue lights/direct connections to 911 services are very good resources, but we do not think there are enough on campus, specifically back on those trails. There is one trail (informally called the "rape trail" by students) that has none of those blue lights on it whatsoever. For students, even walking home in groups, it can be a very scary area at night. In order to avoid this path, a much longer route must be taken. We feel this can be avoided.

Our plan of attack involves the correct use of ethos, logos, and pathos, but we believe the use of emotional appeals will be most effective. While this might be a hard battle to fight, we believe it will be one of a very worthy cause.

Buckle your seat belts, folks. Group two is about to do some pretty great things.