The department, which consists of more than 200 employees, is located on the ground floor of Sims Hall, and operates 24/7, year-round. Law enforcement academy-trained, sworn campus peace officers and non-sworn community service officers provide proactive services through vehicular, bicycle, and foot patrol. They respond to more than 77,000 calls into the emergency communications center for service on and around campus each year which is managed by APCO certified public safety dispatchers. The department also consists of non-sworn residential community safety officers who are located at the entrances of all residential facilities and fire and life safety officers who manage fire detection and suppression systems, and related life safety equipment. The department also includes the office of Emergency Management and Business Continuity planning. To learn more about DPS, visit this website at dps.syr.edu.
Year Highlights:
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Year Highlights:
- In February 2021, Loretta E. Lynch published her report with findings and recommendations for the Department of Public Safety (DPS). As of February 2022, 95% of the recommendations have been completed; the outstanding recommendations are dependent on the hiring a new chief.
- Craig A. Stone has been appointed the new associate vice president and chief of Campus Safety and Emergency Management Services; he will begin his role on April 1, 2022.
- The new director of emergency management and business continuity planning, William Karnadi, CEM, CBCP, was appointed.
- In January 2022 seven recruits graduated from the Syracuse University Department of Public Safety Peace Officer Academy, the fifth academy hosted by DPS. Recruitment for the next Peace Officer Academy has begun, with the next swearing in ceremony planned for after Commencement.
- DPS participated in a table-top exercise with different Syracuse University departments along with first responders from the City of Syracuse and other government agencies. Participants of the exercise were able to learn each other’s policies and procedures so if a real-life incident occurs, all responding agencies would coordinate with one another more efficiently.
Important Statistics:
- Two Fire and Life Safety Services staff members, both certified NYS Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT), each completed over 40 hours of service at the University’s vaccine clinic in the Barnes Center providing Covid-19 vaccine shots to approximately 1,100 campus community members and they provided Covid-19 booster vaccine shot to approximately 250 persons during the University’s booster vaccine clinic in December 2021.
- Fire and Life Safety Services (FLSS) coordinated the annual audit of University owned buildings with the University’s insurance carrier FM Global. The annual audit consisted of a walk-through inspection of 52 buildings, a thorough review of FLSS inspection/compliance records, a full building fire protection valve inspection to ensure valves were locked and in the open position, a churn test of 22 fire pumps, inspection of electrical /mechanical and large storage rooms, and a roof inspection of each building. FM Global will use the information collected to identify potential deficiencies related to fire protection/safety for campus buildings and make recommendations for improvements to ensure property is adequately protected to FM Global standards.
Student Engagement Highlights:
- Celebrated National Coffee with a Cop Day on Wednesday, October 6, 2021, by handing out coffee coupons and individually wrapped cookies to still allow for engagement with our community while remaining COVID protocol safe.
- Opened the South Campus Community Center at 121 Small Road as a welcoming space where students can stop in and share questions and/or concerns.
- Fire and Life Safety Services presented a fire extinguisher training course to eleven students from the Biology Department and twelve student employees at Syracuse Stage. The training class consisted of an hour classroom instruction followed by hands on training using a fire extinguisher to extinguish a live fire using FLSS fire extinguisher training simulator.
- To ensure a fire safe environment in the residence halls during the Halloween season, Fire and Life Safety Services increased the frequency of fire safety inspections of each resident hall to identify any excess combustible Halloween decorations. During the increased fire safety inspections minimal Halloween decorations were found. The decorations which were found and determined to be excessive were immediately removed with the assistance from the Office of Student Life staff.
- PS5 Community Engagement Project: we recently held our first PS5 game night at the Schine Student Center. It was a well-attended event that brought students and DPS officers together for an evening of fun. Given that success, we have additional events planned for the remainder of the Spring 2022 semester.