Ideas to improve and change on-campus student events, communication and police discretion all surfaced during Monday’s meeting of the Task Force on Student-Police Relations.

The Task Force was appointed following an independent investigation into the placement of an undercover officer into United Students Against Sweatshops, now called Students for Economic Justice, beginning Feb. 19, 2000.

Members of the focus group dealing with education, communication and outreach, said they would like to see misconceptions between students and police officers cleared up, starting with a change of clothes.

By redefining when officers have to be in uniform, students might be able to see officers as people instead of a threat, members said.

The group also agreed additional police and student liaisons could help relations.

“We feel that students and police officers need to know each other better as individuals,” said Marti Ruel, director of the Department of Student Life. “We need to show that they are real people and not the uniformed beasts.”

But another group working with special concerns of racial, ethnic and progressive students said they’d like to see improvements to the way student events are policed.

Members said they hope to have delegates from student groups learning how to police their own events instead of paying for Greencoats or officers to attend.

“We want to put the problems on the table, relate them to student and police relations and come up with some practical solutions,” said Lee June, vice president for student affairs and services. “It was a lively discussion. We’re following up on some of the things we heard during the forum.”

The Oct. 2 forum of the Task Force brought public opinions and questions about the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety to the table.

The third focus group, which deals with the intersection of health, safety and privacy with security and enforcement, used opinions from the forum to guide its conversation.

Group members said police discretion regarding citations for minors in possession of alcohol and other common campus offenses need to be reevaluated.

“We still have students that are in trouble (with alcohol) and are afraid to call the police,” said Nancy Allen, education services coordinator for Olin Health Center. “That’s where the conflict is - you have police and EMT’s responding. There has to be some kind of in-between.”