The Campus Safety Advisory Group (CSAG), a group of faculty, students and staff who have been working to develop Smith’s new independent police department since September, 2019, recently announced that their work in designing the new department has essentially come to a close.
For the past decade, Smith College and Mount Holyoke College have shared a police department. Now, Smith is forming its own independent department, slated to begin July 1, 2020. The CSAG met with over four hundred members of the Smith community this academic year, over the course of fourteen listening sessions.
The advisory board is now wrapping up its involvement in the structural decisions around the sort of police presence Smith will have on campus and making its recommendations to President McCartney.
The Sophian spoke with Associate Vice President for Facilities and Operations, Jim Gray and Interim Vice President for Public Affairs, Sam Masinter.
“We would still welcome any feedback anyone wanted to give but we’re no longer out there trying to drum it up and hold sessions and solicit the feedback,” said Gray.
Masinter and Gray said that the campus advisory group received a lot of student input. “We reached out directly to the student senate, to the house presidents … we had sessions dedicated to members of different affinity groups. We really reached out and had excellent participation from all those groups that we solicited to join the process,” said Masinter.
“I think the biggest [take away] is that they were very interested in making sure that the force is community focused,” said Masinter. “They are interested in officers and staff who are involved in everyday student life.”
Gray said that the CSAG heard a lot of feedback on use of the term “police.” “Much of it was positive,” said Gray. “Less of it was negative than a lot of us on the CSAG thought it might be going into this.” “What we heard was it wasn’t so much what you call the department as much as it is what their ethos is around how they do their work,” said Masinter.
Smith will also continue to employ sworn officers. “A sworn department is held to high accreditation standards,” wrote David Deswert, chair of the CSAG, in an email to the Smith community. “A sworn and accredited department reduces the need for armed, local law enforcement (city and state) to respond to non-emergency calls on campus. Our department will not be armed.”
The office housing the police department is currently being expanded in order to accommodate the increasing staff size of the new department and also to house the Smith dispatch which will now be located on West Street. “This decision aligns with feedback from our community that dispatch should be located on the Smith campus and operated by staff deeply familiar with the Smith campus and community,” wrote DeSwert.
The department will also have fewer police car patrols and more biking and walking shifts in order to soften the appearance of police presence on campus. “You’re going to see less of SUVs with tinted windows and more officers on foot and on bike,” said Gray.
The College is now tasked with hiring new members for the department. “We are in the process of recruiting the best and the brightest not only for the officer roles but the leadership roles and administrative roles and other roles in the police department,” said Gray.
The next big moment for the new department, explained Masinter, will be when they search for the first full-time chief of the department. “That’s going to involve members of our community from every walk of life,” said Masinter. “Students will be involved in the search for the first full-time chief and there will be a community advisory group for the police going forward which will be ongoing, as opposed to the CSAG work which has been essentially wrapped up.” A staff member who is part of the consultant team will be serving as the first chief until the department hires a more permanent police chief.
On behalf of the entire committee, “I’d like to extend my thanks to the hundreds of you who helped guide our work,” the CSAG wrote.
(Kevin Gutting, gazettenet.com)
