Last week, the newly formed campus safety advisory group hosted a series of open forums to discuss the future of Smith College’s soon to be independent police department. The forums were intended to collect feedback from the Smith community as the advisory group begins deciding what to suggest to President McCartney in shaping the new department, which will go into effect starting July 1.
The forums were facilitated by representatives from D. Stafford and Associates, a firm hired to conduct an assessment and advise the college on how to implement a new public safety model.
Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges have been working as a joint police department for a decade.
“We definitely need to get rid of the collaboration with Mount Holyoke,” said Jeremy Kenneson, a Campus Police Sergeant. “The fiscal crisis in ‘08 created that collaboration with Mount Holyoke and Hampshire College, and they just put that whole thing together too fast and didn’t think it through. Before the collaboration, we used to do things like teas all the time with students; all that’s gone down in the past 10 years.”
“I want stability,” said another officer. “We need to find a good person who can run the department so we can have stability for the future. We’ve gone through around 11 chiefs, including interim ones, in the last decade.”
Debra Duncan, the lead consultant from D. Stafford and Associates and interim campus safety director, tasked with reshaping the police department, said she was “looking forward to the challenge” and “committed to getting it right.”
“We really want to make sure we get as many voices as possible,” said David DeSwert, Interim Vice President for Finance and Administration. DeSwert said that D. Stafford and Associates will “consolidate the info” collected at the forums and then present it to the campus safety advisory committee, “and together we’ll put together the expertise and input to generate policy that suits the College’s needs.”
Attendees of the forums reported their thoughts to the advisory committee.
One student said that her first year at Smith, she needed to be reassured by upperclassmen that the campus police don’t carry guns. She expressed that when typical police don’t work in your interest as a minority, it’s scary to see them around school.
An officer countered this, asking, “what do students think about us carrying guns?” and referred to the spike in school shootings in recent years.
A faculty member said they would like to see a police department “that employs ‘safety’ officers, not ‘police’ officers,” and expressed the opinion that the tasks campus police officers perform “don’t need to be performed by ‘police’ officers per say.”
In response to this, a campus police officer said that the campus police are often called to “threats that come into the community,” adding, “our policing comes in handy.”
One man argued for the term “police,” as it brings with it the understanding that someone has been trained to a certain degree.
A faculty member expressed concern about “sticking a name on something” without “integrating the meaning” into the department.
Multiple staff members and police officers referenced the inconvenience of dispatch being located at Mount Holyoke College.
“You have to go through Mount Holyoke College and explain where you are on campus,” said a staff member. “They don’t know the campus.”
A debate ensued about lighting on campus, some arguing that the darkness of campus at night could cause danger for students, while others argued that darkness is not proven to increase risk of danger and is in fact good for health.
One officer complained, “These girls are walking around on campus at night” and “we need to light up the campus.”
A student corrected her, saying, “we’re not all girls.”
Multiple attendees voiced concern about the Henshaw Street crosswalk being unsafe, claiming to have seen accidents or near accidents occur at said crosswalk. One woman said she once witnessed a death at that crosswalk and urged for safer conditions for students.
After the discussion part of the forums, attendees expressed opinions on how they felt and their reasons for attending.
“We are your friends,” said one officer. He said he wanted to remind students that “we are not the bad guys.”
“I came here to talk about a really specific issue, which is the lockout policy. Right now, if a person gets locked out, they have to meet campo at their door,” said Amelia Windorski ’20, a psychology major and the SJE representative for Cushing house. “Students, especially students of color, might not want a campus police officer walking around campus unaccompanied. I think it might be a better idea for there to be a designated campo door at every house where people can meet campo in these situations, just so people can feel safe in their own homes.”
Referring to the campus police officers, one student said, “they seem really open about changing.”
On the lack of students attending the forums, Anna Zimmer ’21, a classics and education major, said, “I think the school is trying with the forums, and if we don’t come, there’s no point.”
The forum moderator assured attendees that these forums were “not the end of our work by a measure.”
