Listen to the full interview here
New Bucknell Campus Police Chief Joins WKOK Sunrise
SUNBURY – Jump start a car, unlock a door, or lend an ear . . . These interactions with students, faculty and community are important to the near head of campus police at Bucknell University these days. He says these are opportunities for positive experiences.
Chief of Public Safety Anthony Morgan recently joined WKOK Sunrise to discuss relational policing and how much it helps diffuse escalated situations on campus.
One way he hopes to build trust and stronger community relationships is through online surveys. Campus police officers hand out business cards with a QR code to access a link online, giving students and staff a chance to rate their experience with an officer, “Did we tell you why we’re interacting with you? Did we treat you with equity, dignity and respect?”
“Those types of questions exist just to make sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing; which, for us, is providing outstanding public safety service,” Morgan said.
Another campus seeing success with this relational philosophy is Sonoma State University in California. Here’s their campus police chief Nader Oweis, “What we’re really trying to do is build a philosophy where, ‘We’re in this together’ – we don’t want to be reactive. We really want to work with the community so they can discover and learn and grow while they’re on our campus.”
Bucknell’s chief Morgan said students can make a big difference in policy moving forward, “The student advisory committee will be meeting with us and our new assistant director of community engagement on a monthly basis as the semester is ongoing. We’ll talk about all things safety and students will be a part of our culture of safety and how we evolve as a department.”
You can hear more about the new initiatives in the complete Sunrise interview with Morgan and Oweis on our podcast page, or wherever you download your podcasts.
