UW-W shares Jitters coffee with the cops

Campus Police brings alcohol awareness through social event

Scout Springgate, Assistant Copy Editor

On Tuesday April 30, UW-Whitewater Campus Police held an event in conjunction with the Residence Hall Association (RHA) at the Jitters Café to connect with students over free coffee and celebrate the end of Alcohol Awareness Month.

The event encouraged students to become more aware of the impact alcohol has on the college scene regardless of their age.

The event started with a short speech by the present campus officers, followed by the interactive game of Kahoot!. The Kahoot! was alcohol awareness themed and included Amazon Echo Dots as prizes for the top three scorers. Once the Kahoot! was completed, the crowd dispersed to other activities such as board games and water pong. A raffle closed out the event, and prizes included headphones, a portable phone charger and a Bluetooth speaker.

“Going into the event, I was interested to see what it was about but didn’t expect much out of it,” said freshman Kylie Damhorst about her expectations of the event. “I thought the games were fun, and it was nice to meet the officers. I would definitely be interested in attending this event again.”

In terms of the turnout to the event, it far exceeded the original expectations of both the organizers  and attending students.

“I expected a decent amount of people to be there, but the amount that showed up was surprising,” said senior Kayin Moore about the event’s attendance. “I really enjoyed all of the activities and appreciated the officer’s interactions with the students. I plan on attending this next fall, even though I will have graduated.”

The overall success of the event leaves the question of whether this event will occur again in the near future.

“We will see it next year,” said UW-Whitewater Police Chief Matthew Kiederlen regarding whether the event will occur next year. “My hope is that we probably do it at least once per semester… We’ll probably try to do one in the fall and spring each year.”