By Campus Safety Magazine
A podcast from Campus Safety featuring important and timely conversations with those charged with the public safety, security, and emergency management of schools, universities, and h
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The podcast currently has 106 episodes available.
Campus Safety spoke with University of Florida Police Department (UFPD) Chief and Assistant Vice President Linda Stump-Kurnick about her agency’s experience with accreditation. It is accredited by four separate accreditation bodies: CALEA, IACLEA, the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA), and the Florida Telecommunications Accreditation Commission (FLA-TAC). Chief Stump-Kurnick has also served as a CALEA assessor for the past 10 years and traveled to other agencies to conduct assessments, completing 48 assessments to date.
Her department’s numerous accreditations is just one reason why she was named the 2024 Campus Safety Higher Education and Healthcare Director of the Year.
In our interview, Stump-Kurnick discusses not only the boost in professionalism and liability avoidance benefits of accreditation, but also how it helps her cross-train UFPD staff who then can mentor others in the department.
She then put on her CALEA assessor hat to offer some sage advice to other college campuses thinking about getting accredited.
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Cardiac arrest doesn’t just happen to adults who are middle aged or elderly. America was reminded of this fact on January 2, 2023, when 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field from a heart attack he experienced during his team’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Fortunately, Hamlin was resuscitated with CPR and an automated external defibrillator (AED).
Hamlin’s health scare -- which millions witnessed because the game was nationally televised – made a lot more Americans aware of the risk of cardiac arrest in young people and how CPR and AEDs can save lives. It also prompted University of Vermont (UVM) administrators to take notice of the risk of cardiac arrest on campus, whether the victim is a young student or perhaps a staff member or visitor who is older.
UMV Director of Emergency Management John Marcus and his team of student interns had already been developing a solution: Cat ECare. Hamlin’s medical emergency prompted the full roll-out of the program.
Cat ECare emergency stations, which are distributed around campus, include AEDs. However, Marcus and his team made the stations even more useful by adding bleeding control kits and Narcan. Additionally, embedded within the program are ongoing training opportunities for UVM students, faculty, and staff. Training covers CPR, how to use AEDs, bleeding control, and how to use Narcan. UVM now has 100 Cat ECare emergency stations located all around campus.
The Cat ECare program was just one reason why Marcus was named a finalist in this year's Director of the Year program.
In Campus Safety’s interview with Marcus, he describes:
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In 2023, there were 11,311 security services businesses in the United States, according to IBIS. Campus leaders tasked with making security purchase decisions have to choose what solutions they want to prioritize and then decide who they want to buy them from. How can the options be narrowed down?
Rich Payne, safety director at Academy District 20 (ASD20) in Colorado and a 2024 Campus Safety Director of the Year finalist, has used lessons learned from major school incidents, including first-hand experience, to both enhance internal best practices and navigate the complex world of choosing security vendors, particularly as it relates to perimeter security (2:45).
In this interview, Payne shares:
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Twenty-two years ago, Kelli Lotito was hired as a physical education teacher at Regis Jesuit High School in Colorado. Lotito worked her way up the ranks, becoming the athletic director before transitioning into the role of dean of students for 15 years.
Lotito just finished her fourth year as the school’s safety and security director, and has used her past job experiences to garner buy-in from various school stakeholders with whom she has formed strong relationships over her illustrious career.
"It's important, as everybody watching this knows, to have buy-in from your constituents. Teachers and administrators are not always the only people that are on your campus," said Lotito.
During this interview, Lotito shares:
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A year and a half ago, student community relations officers (SACROs) were added to Brentwood Union Free School District’s school safety team. These non-traditional school safety employees were added when Byron McCray, the district’s director of school safety and chief emergency management officer and a 2024 Campus Safety Director of the Year finalist, noticed limited interactions between students and the district’s traditional school safety officers.
“Our school safety team, they’re responsible for seeing students when they arrive, when they leave, and during the course of the day when they’re patrolling the district. However, I found that a lot of our school safety team wasn’t trained to deal with a crisis if a student was going through a crisis,” said McCray. “So I had to create a team that was able to deal with different types of issues that our students are facing.”
Their job roles are changing daily, requiring constant adaptation for each unique situation.
During this interview, McCray shares:
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Like many other communities, stakeholders from the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) began questioning the role of school resources officers following the murder of George Floyd. To evaluate whether SROs were right for their district, BVSD hired an external facilitator with expertise in equity and community engagement who developed the BVSD Equity Council.
More than 900 community members applied to sit on the council, and district leaders spoke to stakeholders such as the District Attorney's Office, police, and the public defenders' office. Ultimately, the Board of Education voted to remove SROs.
As an alternative, Brendan Sullivan, BVSD's director of safety, security, and emergency management, created the School Safety Advocate role. In this interview, Sullivan shares:
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The U.S. is currently experiencing a labor shortage, and nowhere is that being experienced more than in law enforcement. In 2022, officer turnover and resignations were up 47% compared to 2019. Additionally, retirements were up 19%, according to a survey from the Police Executive Research Forum.
College campus public safety has also been greatly impacted by the current tight labor market. Florida SouthWestern University’s police department had an employee turnover rate of more than 20% in 2019 when its current chief of police, Jerry Connolly, took over the agency’s helm.
He inherited a department that “fostered a less than desirable culture that consisted of no accountability, non-compliant personnel, a lack of modernized infrastructure with robust policies that properly govern the police department,” says Connolly. “And they didn't have any competitive incentives that were comparable to similar policing agencies.”
The chief quickly got to work, authoring more than 150 policies to modernize the department’s infrastructure. These and other changes resulted in a massive reduction in turnover from more than 20% five years ago to 2%-5% today. His work in reducing employee turnover is just one reason why Connolly was named one of this year’s Campus Safety Higher Education Director of the Year finalists.
In this interview, Connolly provides tips on how to reduce employee turnover. Some of the changes he recommends are small but have the potential to make a big impact.
It’s no secret that a key ingredient to having an effective campus public safety department is ensuring officers are paid a competitive wage. However, since the pandemic, keeping officer salaries competitive has become a significant challenge with the inflation rate skyrocketing to 7% in 2021 and 6.5% the following year. Although inflation dropped quite a bit in 2023 and this year, it’s still higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was the challenge facing Keene State College Director of Campus Safety Chris Buckley when he started his position at the school in July 2020. At that time, the starting pay rate for officers ranged from $14.69 to $17 per hour.
In this interview Buckley, who is also a 2024 Campus Safety Director of the Year Finalist, describes how he was able to effectively advocate for an increase to $20 per hour for new officers and $24 per hour for sergeants.
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Communication failures have played a significant role in many school tragedies. While we can't fully prevent human and technological errors, there are ways to improve emergency response without breaking the bank.
Donald Webster, Chief of Campus Safety at Kalamazoo Public Schools and a 2024 Campus Safety Director of the Year finalist, turned to several available grants to help improve communication technology throughout the district.
In this interview, Webster shares how he used funds from the Michigan State Police Competitive School Safety Grant and the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office Grant to improve communication technology.
Webster also discusses the importance of "relationship-based security" and how it has made his district safer.
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● YouTube: @Campussafetymagazine
Lockdown drills have become a standard part of school security across the United States. Although it is important to feel prepared to respond to a school emergency, these drills often elicit anxiety, fear, and sometimes trauma among students and staff.
Ian Lopez, director of safety and security for the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado and a 2024 K-12 Campus Safety Director of the Year finalist, has worked diligently to ensure lockdown procedures minimally impact student and staff mental health -- so much so that other districts have turned to him for advice.
In this interview, Lopez shares:
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The podcast currently has 106 episodes available.