Bright red signs in drop-off and pick-up areas at UNR have a name written on them: Sami.
Samantha Josephson was a 21-year-old senior at the University of South Carolina when a man posing as an Uber driver kidnapped and killed her. Her memory lives on through the #WHATSMYNAME Foundation headed by Sami's parents. UNR is joining in on the campaign.
“We were at a conference and we actually met with Sami’s parents, and they were really sweet and gave us a bunch of signs to put up on campus," said Madison Eifert, community relations specialist with UNR police. "I thought, ‘This could be a really good thing to have on our campus just to protect students.’”
The signs warn students to double check that they're getting into the right car whenever they pay for a ride.
University police say that they've had incidents where students feel unsafe in rideshare vehicles, and they hope the new signs have a positive impact.
“We’ve had at least two or three incidents with, young ladies got into a car and then immediately thought something was wrong," UNR police chief Eric James said. "It turns out the guy was intoxicated as their rideshare driver."
Eifert says that the new signs, along with existing self-defense classes on-campus, will give students the tools they need to protect themselves from harm.
“I was talking to a faculty member the other day who took one of our drop-in classes and she said she used it in one of the local parking lots on campus last year. ... She felt well-prepared for it," Eifert said. "She was aware of her surroundings and things still happened to her, but she was able to tap into the techniques that we taught her.”
She said that she has the same goal with the new signs and programming: help students return home safe at the end of the night.
