With campus carry laws and the “It’s On Us” campaign being in the news recently, campus safety has been a hot topic in higher education. Last semester, the Texas Tech University Student Government Association’s sponsored transportation service, Safe Ride, had an undeterminable future. Now, SGA external vice president candidate Caleb Fisher is trying to revamp the program.
Fisher, who is running with campaign bloc OneTech 2015, wants SGA to partner with ride-booking service Uber to offer a better Safe Ride option.
According to the SGA website, Safe Ride is a service provided through student transportation fees for pickup anywhere in Lubbock to an individual’s residence. The service encourages students to not drive while under the influence. Safe Ride is provided through local taxi services and is available to all students. However, this program is currently unavailable to all.
Fisher said Safe Ride is a great service, but it is underutilized and could improve.
“Safe Ride currently just functions as a money pit, basically,” Fisher said,” and it’s not really keeping anybody safer. And so, we’re doing away with that and using the money saved from that to create an SGA Uber discount.”
Fisher explained students would be able to use their student ID number to receive a discount on an Uber ride. He said he knows creating a relationship with Uber would not be easy, but it is possible with the right committee in place.
In an article on The Hub@TTU last semester, Pooneet Kant, associate general manager for Texas at Uber, expressed interest in partnering with Texas Tech to provide a “safe ride” option.
Fisher said another benefit of partnering with Uber would be the potential for more student jobs. Many students are Uber drivers, so by partnering with Safe Ride, there would be more opportunities for those students to earn money.
Fisher said Uber is the best option to improve transportation safety among college students.
Another idea Fisher has to improve campus safety is the implementation of an anonymous Snapchat program.
Snapchat allows users to send pictures that appear to the receiver for up to 10 seconds. Fishers’ idea is to implement a SGA Snapchat, which students could send pictures of concerning things to somewhat anonymously.
“Nobody wants to tweet a picture of a dark alleyway and say like, ‘Texas Tech should correct this and make it better!’ You don’t want to come across as the humble servant, whistleblower type of deal,” Fisher said. “So, basically being able to Snapchat us to show us a picture and a caption of what they want fixed, us being able to save that, documenting it, and it being done.”
Fisher said one of his main goals as external vice president, if elected, would be to improve campus safety.
“SGA has the power to fix a lot of things; sometimes we just have to know about them,” Fisher said.
To learn more about Fishers’ initiatives, watch Conversations with Candidates.
Although certain Hub staffers may or may not support various campaigns, their views or opinions do not reflect those of The Hub@TTU as a whole. In the interest of fairness, The Hub@TTU will not be endorsing a particular campaign.
About Sarah Self-Walbrick
