September 27, 2024
Dear Campus Community,
A pillar of the university's strategic plan is to "invest in people and communities." The university made public its focus on this goal in 2022, when President Pines announced plans to implement a series of recommendations to enhance public safety and community policing, put forward by the Public Safety and Community Policing Task Force.
The task force recommendations continue to guide us toward initiatives and programs that facilitate partnerships between public safety officials and the university community.
As co-chairs of the Campus Safety Advisory Council (CSAC), established through this effort, we are pleased to share the progress made on campus since our last update last fall. Of the 21 task force recommendations, 16 are now complete or have a sustained commitment and 5 are in progress.
Highlights since our last update include:
- UMD’s community policing initiatives that use more holistic approaches to address our community’s needs. Examples include event security strategies that offer alternatives to using police officers at events, the new Restorative Justice Alternative Resolution Process, and the ongoing LightsOn! program that provides vouchers instead of citations.
- The Mental Health Emergency Assessment and Response Team (MHEART) initiative of the University Counseling Center in partnership with the Department of Public Safety (DPS). A mental health clinician responds to mental health emergencies along with first responders. Procedures for managing mental health transports have also been improved to better support students and community members in crisis. UMD’s MHEART program is one of the first mobile crisis co-responder programs in a university setting in the United States.
- The new for-credit course Bridging Perspectives: Critical Conversations Between Students and Police offered in Spring 2024 by Dr. Rashawn Ray in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) and Captain August Kenner of DPS. DPS also convened the twelve-week (not-for-credit) Citizens' Police Academy for university and local community members twice last academic year, with another one being planned for Spring 2025.
For more information, please visit our online dashboard. It provides the status of each task force recommendation.
Our accomplishments over the past year have been made possible by the strong support and collaboration of President Pines, DPS, the Division of Student Affairs, CSAC, and other campus stakeholders. We look forward to continued progress ahead.
Sincerely,
Carlo Colella
Vice President & Chief Administrative Officer
He/Him/His
Georgina Dodge, Ph.D.
Vice President for Diversity & Inclusion
She/Her/Hers