Fanshawe College's foot patrol program has been modified to become a new student auxiliary program.

Volunteers of the program will still be part of walk homes, but they will also have a chance to assist the special constables on campus. It was modeled after the police department's auxiliary program, said Bob Earle, security supervisor at the college. Now volunteers will get more in-field experience, including nightly lock-ups, while providing the usual services.

"It jives nicely with a lot of programs our volunteers are in," said Earle, using police foundations as an example. "It's a much better fit for (them)."

The changes developed due to low participation in and low demand for the foot patrol program. "We spoke with (the students), asked for their input — (they) said the program was sort of boring," explained Earle. The group was only receiving about one or two calls a week.

The student auxiliary program has already trained its first batch of volunteers and will be training the second at the end of October. The response for the new program was "tremendous," said Earle. "We have student perspective in our operations."

While they've already secured their 15 student volunteers for this year's run of the program, they will be looking for a new group each fall.