To: The Wellesley College Community
From: President Paula A. Johnson; Sheilah Shaw Horton, Vice President and Dean of Students; and Carolyn Slaboden, Chief Human Resources Officer
Re: Future of Public Safety at Wellesley
Date: February 12, 2021
Over the past several months, many in our community have been working to develop a vision for the future of public safety at Wellesley. Senior leadership has met with academics and practitioners in the field to learn how models of campus safety are evolving. Faculty, staff, and students have participated in a community engagement process that included surveys and a series of focus groups. At the same time, members of the Residential Life staff and campus police have been implementing important changes and improvements to our current campus protocols.
Today, we want to share an update on our progress, highlight findings and recommendations from the community engagement process, and discuss how we plan to move forward.
Representatives from Residential Life, the Stone Center Counseling Service, and the Wellesley College Police Department have been meeting since last spring to identify key areas for improvement, specifically regarding ways to limit the presence of campus police in student spaces.
To address student requests to reconsider our response to student mental health issues, they have designed a first-response protocol that reduces the use of campus police and elevates the role of the Stone Center and the Residential Life team in managing situations that do not require police. The three departments trained together last month and will continue to do so over the course of the semester.
The College is also reducing the involvement of campus police in addressing lockouts. We have relied on campus police to respond to lockouts in the residence halls because theirs is the only department at Wellesley that is open 24 hours. Partnering with campus police, Residential Life has hired students to staff and manage a “lockout call line” that students can call anytime before 3 a.m., and other students will respond, rather than campus police.
For noise complaints, the Residential Life team is implementing a new approach that encourages students to respectfully address each other directly, or to reach out to the house president or the community director for help, instead of calling campus police. The police have agreed that calls for noise will now be redirected to the Residential Life staff.
Community feedback on developing a future vision for public safety
Over the course of the fall, Jacquelina Marquez, dean of religious and spiritual life, and Pamela L. Taylor, assistant provost of institutional planning and assessment and director of institutional research, with support from Sarah Staley, associate director of talent management and development, convened a total of eight focus groups with a range of stakeholders, including:
- Dean of Students Advisory Group (students)
- Administrative Council Steering Committee and Standing Committee chairs (staff)
- Two faculty focus groups
- Commission on Ethnicity, Race, and Equity (faculty, staff, and students)
- Harambee House Council (students)
- Resident assistants and house presidents (students)
- College Government Senate
They also solicited feedback from the community via a feedback form. In total, they engaged more than 175 members of the Wellesley community in the process. We want to thank everyone who contributed to this process, and thank Jackie, Pam, and Sarah for their leadership and dedication to this important work.
Key findings and recommendations from the community engagement process
- Any new public safety model must be designed to meet the community’s needs and be flexible enough to change as those needs change.
- The College must better define the scope of public safety in general, and of campus police’s role in particular, and communicate the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders including campus police, Residential Life, counseling services, and student leaders (RAs and HPs) as well as senior leadership.
- The College must communicate the roles of everyone involved in public safety to the community.
- The new public safety model must have transparency and accountability, including a plan to evaluate whether the model works as intended.
- It is important that the College provide opportunities for ongoing community involvement and input. Community members also want to be accountable to each other in terms of creating a shared sense of safety on campus.
- Any changes to our current public safety model must ensure that the campus remains protected from external threats.
Next steps
We are planning to launch a national search for a new head of public safety at Wellesley this spring. We will look for candidates who can help us design a new model that meets the needs of our campus and keeps our community safe. We also have established an advisory group that includes faculty, staff, and students and meets regularly with Acting Chief of Campus Police Phil DiBlasi and his leadership team to bring ideas for changes that can be implemented while we await the new head of public safety.
We want to thank everyone who has participated in this effort to help shape a new vision for public safety at Wellesley. This is important work that requires us to listen carefully to the many different voices in our community. We will continue to keep you informed as we move forward with the search for the new head of public safety at Wellesley, and we appreciate the ongoing work and collaboration that is happening to improve public safety here on campus
