(The Center Square) – Managing a state university system comes with many challenges – educating thousands of students while also providing security while they are on campus.
That requires many universities to operate large police departments, sometimes as big or bigger than the cities where the campuses are located. Recruitment includes the university system competing with city and county police departments in the jurisdictions where the campuses are located.
The University of North Carolina System just launched its first law enforcement training academy with 17 cadets in the inaugural class. Recruitment incentives include free tuition at the colleges and universities in the system and $1,500 annual bonuses for having a college degree.
Academy students take classes in basic subjects such as criminal law, firearms, driver training, ethics, physical skills and crisis response. Graduating from the academy will fulfill the state’s requirement that cadets receive 868 hours of basic training before they can be certified as police officers.
The UNC System maintains a police force of more than 500 officers, Fred Sellers, vice president of Safety and Enterprise Risk Management, told TCS.
“Metropolitan areas are more challenging,” he said. “If you get to Raleigh or Chapel Hill, there are many law enforcement agencies to make it competitive in that space.”
Maintaining a full force without a lot of vacancies can sometimes be difficult depending on the location of the campus, swaid Sellers, who was formerly with the U.S. Secret Service before joining the university system five years ago.
One of the most important functions of a campus police officer is to protect the students’ right to free expression while at the same time ensuring that protests don’t block academic instruction.
“We have to balance that out at all times – freedom of expression while ensuring that you can still get an education and do so without a heavy hand,” he said.
Campus police officers also make sure both students and the public are protected at large campus events such as football and basketball games.
The campus police officers have a unique role in helping students complete their education and leave with a diploma, Sellers said.
As students are growing and learning and are often away from home for the first time, some will make common mistakes for their age group. Crisis intervention is part of the officer’s training.
“Our goal is to ensure that students walk across the stage,” he said. “We want our officers to be trained to support them. We spend a lot of time focusing on deescalation efforts in our training with officers as well.”
