Student Government hosts third annual safety walk

By Kayla Pickrell

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The third annual safety walk Monday evening will focus on campus walkways and areas that are unsafe and uncomfortable for students to travel at night.

“We will be looking at more convenient ways students get around campus that don’t necessarily have the cat paws,” said Woody Hoagland, head of campus safety for Student Government. “We will walk through the sketchy parts of campus.”

Areas the team will be looking for include poorly lit walkways and enclosed areas.

“They are areas you wouldn’t want to travel overnight,” Hoagland said.

The safety walk will start on North Campus and make its way to W.T. Young Library and Commonwealth Stadium, covering all of UK.

Two to three students from each UK class will be attending the walk to highlight parts of campus where they would feel uncomfortable or that are in need of change.

Although few were selected to attend the safety walk, the public is welcome to attend to help point out areas that could be unsafe.

Every year, the safety walk is conducted in the spring, three to four weeks before the transition in legislation. With the new student government legislation, Hoagland said the walk sometimes is pushed aside.

“We are moving the walk earlier solely to get things done, whereas it has always been just swept under the rug when it was done late in the year,” said JR Leach, deputy chief of community outreach for SG. “The focus of our administration is to make an impact with safety initiatives.”

The majority of the money used to initiate the changes will come from the Student Government budget, but when redoing the cat paws on campus, the funds will come from the university.

“They want to make sure we aren’t drowning our funds with things they can cover,” Hoagland said.

The walk will start at 6:30 p.m. and end around 8 p.m. To join the walk, meet Hoagland in Student Center room 120, the SG office.

Hoagland said any changes, at the latest, should be completed within two months after the walk.

“I’ve looked at what they’ve done in the past,” Hoagland said, “and I want to evaluate everything to make this a safer campus.”