University of Iowa student idea leads to 988 decals on UI squad cars

IOWA CITY — Implementing an idea from students concerned about mental health, the University of Iowa Police Department has added decals featuring 988 -- the national suicide and crisis lifeline number --to all its squad cars and Nite Ride vehicles.

The 988 number connects those in crisis to trained counselors for immediate assistance. The number was standardized nationally and shortened to just three digits in July 2022.

The idea to add the decals came from a group of University of Iowa student interns and volunteers, who put together the initial proposal and worked on several aspects of the project, including designing the decals.

Student plan

“988 has been a number in the suicide prevention world that everybody’s talking about,” said Jared Nylin, a UI senior studying criminology law and justice. “We need to spread the word of it. Recently in our community, Iowa City police put 988 on their squad cars and it got me thinking, ‘Hey, why don’t we?’ ”

Nylin, 31, interned with UI Campus Safety in 2022 and has continued working with the department as a volunteer. He’s worked on a few mental health-focused projects with the department and has been part of meetings with the university’s suicide prevention coalition.

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Nylin brought up the idea for the 988 decals to the department chief, who told him to create a plan and a road map. He reached out to the other department interns and volunteers, and seven other students joined the project.

“With my personal struggles with mental health, I realized how it can be really hard to get the access to resources you need to get help,” said Ella Brown, one of the students who worked on the project.

“Finding out where to go for help kind of sparked a passion for me, so I thought, ‘Let’s do this. It'll make 988 more well known in the community and, in that way, make resources more accessible to people who need help.’ ”

Brown, 21, graduated this year with a degree in criminology. She was an intern in the summer of 2023 and stayed on as a volunteer to help with creating the 988 decals.

The eight students started meeting in September to plan the project, and they presented the plan to the department and to university administration in December.

Jordan Fligg, a senior studying criminology who has learned graphic design as a hobby, designed the decals. The students found a vendor to put the decals on the 12 squad cars, and the project was finished by April. The total cost was $750.

‘Real life experience’

“At UIPD, we are a police department, but we're also a police department at a university, so we really also view ourselves as educators,” said Hayley Bruce, the public information officer for the UI Police Department. “We want to ensure that our student interns and our student employees really get real life experience.

“It's really important to us that we followed the same exact process with their idea that we would follow with an idea from a full-time employee. We want them to get that experience and understand the process, and hopefully they learned a few things as part of that, too.”

The UI is among the first Big Ten universities to add 988 to its campus safety vehicles, and the students said they were excited to set the standard for other universities.

“One of the things I really did appreciate during this project was how open the conversations were when we were talking with administration, as well as our other partners like University Counseling Services and our mental health partners as well,” said Fligg, 22. “Pretty much everyone was really supportive of our idea.”

Campus safety leadership supported the students’ initiative, which they said aligns with the university’s strategic plan goals for well-being and success, as well as the UI’s Suicide Prevention Coalition and the Well-Being Collaborative strategic plans.

“We’re just grateful for our students bringing this idea to us,” Bruce said. “Students are our No. 1 customers, so it's really important for us to hear from them, what they need and what they think will be helpful.”

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