by Adam West
Recently on campus, events concerning public safety have been coming and going without any big headlines to report about Centre being dangerous. No news is good news, though, as the Cento decided to interview the new Director of the Department of Public Safety, Barbara Hayes, to find out if things have really been as quiet as they seem:
What drew you to working at Centre?
I’m just going to be quite honest and say that I think it was the opportunity to come and work in a location that gives me a bit more permanency. I knew it was going to be a long lasting position instead of “the college could close tomorrow” or “you could lose your job tomorrow” because I was always in a position. You just never knew what was going to be happening from day to day to an extent.
What is DPS’s job on campus?
Our job on campus is to provide public safety. To provide safety—for not just the students, faculty, and staff, but anybody that comes on this campus—to help promote as safe an environment as we possibly can. The security part of it is locking up the doors and making sure all the buildings and everything are secure. We do control your access, we control the access to the buildings, but also we’re also part of the educational system here, in that we educate you on what is good, safe manners, and what isn’t, you know? They think all we do is enforce the rules. No. The whole job is to give you that community feeling. Because when you get out of here, if we’re part of that education, it’s not just learning your books, it’s learning how to deal with those matters when you get out in the real world. Because we are in the Centre bubble.
What can you tell me about the crime log?
The crime log is where we list any incidents that are related to Clery reporting [Clery Act of 1990]]. If we have thefts on campus, those should be reported. As long as they’re reported to us, we put it out there.If you’re going to send your kid to school, and you want to know what the campus is like, look at the crime log, because that can tell you a lot about what goes on, the incidents that go on on that campus. So it just kind of gives you an overall of the daily crimes that we do have happen … on the campus, which we don’t have a whole lot going on here, which is great.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
My favorite part of my job is the fact that I get to meet and watch people grow from when they come here as a freshman or first year till they leave and watch how much they change. Prior to my previous job, I worked in a high school for six years, and there were kids … in that high school that went to the college that I went to work at. So I got to see them from their freshman year of high school up until they were seniors in college, and then thereafter some. And it was really great to see how much they matured and changed. Plus, it gives you the chance to, you know, again—I like to educate and train, and I wanted to be a teacher. So working on a college campus, you kinda get to teach, too. That’s why. For sure.
Are there any cool plans or events DPS will be hosting that you can talk about?
We have some things that we’re working on… We have some things that are in the works. You know, I’ll be looking for some of those hopefully here in the next month, and I definitely know come spring. But as you know, we always are participating. If we’re not, we’re always out there whenever one of the organizations on campus—as far as student life goes— has got something going on. We’ve been at expo, we’re always there.
What can you tell me about recent changes to the DPS training?
So, when it comes to the training every officer gets trained on, what we basically do is what our daily activities and what our job is supposed to be. What I’ve done is brought in some things. ow, most officers have a familiarization if they didn’t already, but we refamiliarize them with the National Incident Command System in case we have an incident.. Until we get the crisis management team in place, every officer is CPR and CPR first aid trained, which is all part of a requirement that we have. Everybody knows how to use an AED. Every one of my officers is QPR trained. They all have some understanding or general knowledge of de-escalation training, which I know they’ve had before, but you know, this is an emphasis, and we make sure that we keep this up every year. We just recently went through some training working with our counseling services, where they got some training on dealing with people who may be going through mental issues, or something like that. And then we all have fire safety training. Everybody … has fire safety training, of course, ‘cause that’s why DPS exists—because of an incident that happened back in the eighties or nineties, a fire in one of the fraternity houses. Before that, you know, DPS just basically consisted of a watchman just going around and checking. DPS was created because of this fire. And basically that’s why we’re so hard up on the fire drills and the fire registrations and all that.
It seems like things have been pretty quiet recently for DPS. Would you say that’s true?
Yes, I would, and I’m going to think a part of that comes down to the things that we’re doing and have done, and … I’m not going to say it’s about training— it’s about the building of those relationships that we have built. I spoke with the freshman this year; I told them, “You see a DPS officer riding around on the golf carts, just wave.” My officers are building those relationships to get to talking to them so when we do have something going on, it makes it easier for us to come and deal with your situations. And it could just be the environment right now, the students could just be a different type of student that we’re dealing with.
Anything you’d like to add?
Just thank you for taking your time to come and speak to us and come and find out what’s going on! I’ve been here three years, getting ready to start my fourth year, and I had to tell the SGA president, even as an assistant, “Hey, let’s just sit down and talk sometime!” … Hopefully all of that is going to continue.
Centre College is a relatively safe campus, and that’s thanks to DPS. Even though things have been status quo, it is nice to know that there are people on campus protecting us and making sure bad things don’t happen and that they are willing to get better at their job. We often get bogged down in the headlines that it’s important to remember that no news can actually be good news.