More than 20 University students and faculty members walked around campus Tuesday night looking for lighting problems for the University’s annual Campus Lighting Walk.The groups were assigned to seven areas on campus and marked codes on a map to signify spots where trees were blocking lights, lights needed to be repaired or additional lights were needed.Jim Mayne, associate director of Utility Operations, said only one student participated in last year’s walk, which is designed to help Facility Services locate the areas where students feel uncomfortable. “We need students to show us where the problems are,” Mayne said. “We might not think an area is a problem because we would never think to walk that way, but maybe students do.”A group of five members from the Freshman Leadership Council found a problem area in front of the Student Union just minutes into their walk. “The waiting area for the bus stop is really dark,” said Claire Liuzza, nutrition freshman. “I wouldn’t feel safe waiting for a bus right there.”Peter Davidson, director of Energy Services, said the campus is routinely checked for lighting issues by members of Facility Services, but the walk would help find hidden issues. “When we have 40 sets of eyes out here looking for problems, we can find the problem areas that we might not normally,” Peterson said. Participants were also asked to look for “light pollution,” a problem new to this year’s survey. “There are lights on campus that aim to the sky and that can be described as dark sky intrusion,” Davidson said. “These lights don’t provide adequate lighting, and they increase energy costs.”With all teams’ surveys completed, Facility Services will begin assessing the need for repair. The University has organized the walk for more than 15 years, Davidson said. Mayne said the walk last year helped to identify a major problem area on campus. “The worst thing I found was due to a change in the ways students were parking,” Mayne said. “There was a lot that students had never parked in, and I went over there and saw young women parking and walking through a completely dark area.”Mayne said last year’s walk showed 4 percent of lights on campus were in need of repair, but expected higher numbers this year. “Since we had the hurricane, I would imagine that number would be higher,” Mayne said. “Directly after Gustav, we had about 10 percent of lights out. We’ve been working to fix them, but it’s a long process.”The walk was organized by the Office of Public Safety, Student Government and Facility Services. Corey Graham, SG director of Campus Development, said SG stressed the need for students to  participate in the lighting walk. “I’d like to see more students come out to help with the survey,” Graham said. “We want to use the student input gathered tonight to help formulate our campus-wide lighting policy.”Graham said SG is working on plans to implement lighting corridors, which would be specifically designated paths with extra lighting and officer patrols.- – – – Contact Katie Kennedy at [email protected]