Utah State Safe App Propelled by Numerous On-Campus Organizations

A new app being promoted this month at Utah State University was one of the largest collaborative projects by student government leaders on the Logan campus. 

Multiple organizations and many individuals came together to work on the Utah State Safe app, including the Utah State University Student Association Executive Council, Utah State President Noelle Cockett, the USU Police Department, USU Emergency Management and University Marketing and Communication.

Utah State Safe is an app that integrates with campus safety and security systems and provides several features to help protect USU students.

Amanda DeRito, director of crisis communications and issues management, was part of an emergency committee put together last year to improve the university’s Code Blue campus alert system. Jaren Hunsaker, last year’s student body president, came to the committee with the idea of having a mobile safety app for USU.

DeRito continues her work with the emergency committee and works with USU Public Safety to enhance their communications and manage the app.

“All of Student Involvement is participating in this, which I think is awesome,” said Dexton Lake, the student body vice president.

Lake and Sami Ahmed, the student body president, are leading the campaign together.

“Noelle Cockett came to our Executive Council and asked me if I would create awareness about the app among students,” said Ahmed.

From there, Ahmed and the Executive Council embarked on a campaign to push students to download Utah State Safe. Currently, the council is partnered with campus police to set up several locations with police officers this week and next to hand out flyers and answer questions about the app.

USUSA also hopes to get a discount at the USU Campus Store for students who downloaded the app.

The main event surrounding the campaign, “Download for Donuts,” will take place Oct. 30 and 31. At the event, students will get a free doughnut from tables set up around Logan campus when they download the app.

“The app can be a critical resource for student and campus safety,” Ahmed said. 

The app has a feature that lets students instantly share their location with campus police, making speech or dialing 911 unnecessary for difficult situations. Along with this feature, students can contact campus police to walk with them when feeling unsafe at any time of day.

“Right now the campus police are not visible and most students don’t know where to find them,” Ahmed continued. “The hope is now students don’t have to look for the campus police’s physical location. It will be as easy as pulling out their phone.”

Through the app, students can share their location with friends so they know where the student is and if he or she arrives home safely.

“I think these will drastically improve safety at USU,” Lake said. “This app shows how seriously USU is taking their students’ safety and I think that adds incredible value to this university.”