BATON ROUGE - A group of LSU Manship School students held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday to unveil a new creative crosswalk they have been working on for two semesters.

The crosswalk is part of a class project the students took on for Professor Robert Mann's senior capstone class. Mann says each semester, his students choose a campus issue to tackle, and this group chose pedestrian safety.

"Last semester a group of students were worried about the fact that there were so many pedestrian accidents on this campus, and this is not a very safe campus for pedestrians, especially crossing Highland Road and other high-traffic areas," Mann explained.

Amelia Gabor, an LSU student who graduated last semester, was part of the project when it began. She says they analyzed the walk infrastructure on LSU's campus and found that it didn't effectively serve pedestrians. 

"We wanted to do something big and bold to kind of show the community that pedestrians should be prioritized and LSU's campus is for the students, the visitors and the teachers that walk and visit every day," Gabor said. 

According to research done by the group, creative, colorful crosswalks draw drivers' attention therefore increasing visibility and safety. The students hope now that one crosswalk is implemented, the student body will be enthusiastic about adding more around campus.

"Our goal with this was really to garner enough attention and enough momentum in the student body that they would be interested in doing something more permanent," said Isabella Matthews, another LSU student in the group.

The 31-foot, purple tiger crosswalk can be found on Tower Drive between the LSU Student Union and Memorial Tower.