The Presidential Taskforce on Campus Safety announced by President Luke Wood during his fall address has begun its work communicating with the campus community.

Shawki Moore, the presidential aide to Wood, said the taskforce will be holding open discussions with students to gain a deeper understanding of how Sacramento State community members experience safety on campus to ensure vital improvements and foster a safer campus.

“The purpose is to understand from the Sac State community what are some issues or areas for improvement on campus safety,” Moore said. “Specifically the three areas we’re looking for are emotional, cognitive and physical safety.”

This move comes after students expressed their desire to feel safe following recent safety issues on campus, including multiple assaults reported on campus in just the last few months.

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“It’s certainly something that needs to be focused on, especially today with everything that has been going on with the violence towards women,” Kaylee Jett, a second-year English major, said. “They need to make sure that women, minorities and really everyone is safe.”

Jett said they hope the taskforce specifically touches on points such as campus safety at night and the well-being of LGBTQ students who have been struggling against recent anti-LGBT legislation across the country.

The taskforce committee is co-chaired by Moore and Aniesha Mitchell, the interim vice president of Student Affairs. The official taskforce itself will be composed of people from diverse origins with expertise in safety and security measures.

“President Wood selected the membership of this taskforce through a shared governance process by asking for delegates from ASI, staff assembly and assigned experts that deal with safety very closely in their area to be a part of this,” Moore said.

During the remaining fall semester, the taskforce will observe campus discussions and serve as a recommendation body, rather than an implementation of any specific actions. They will work to use the data collected from their forums to make the necessary recommendations and reports to President Wood on the student’s behalf.

“Listening is not an action,” Wood said. “You need to actually do something for it to be an action, and it’s not until you do something to show that you care and it’s a priority.”

Also on the committee is Associated Students Inc. President Nataly Andrade-Dominguez. Andrade-Dominguez said there needs to be student representatives on all safety committees at Sac State.

“There are a multitude of committees that focus on different areas like physical, emotional and safety,” Andrade-Dominguez said. “Primarily, the most important mandate of the taskforce is to identify the key concerns that affect the campus community.”

While security is still a big issue on campus, Andrade-Dominguez said she has a positive feeling on the future of the taskforce.

“Based on just what I’ve seen this summer I am very confident, and I don’t say that often, that the task force is going to go well and I’m hopeful that the task force will do what it was intended to do,” Andrade-Dominguez said.

Moore said the taskforce is truly committed to hearing from the entire Sac State community of faculty, staff and students about how they can continually improve the current foundation of campus safety and take it to the next level.

“We take the work that we are doing very seriously and we hope that it leads to tangible changes in campus safety,” Moore said.