With help from the Department of Public Safety at Syracuse University, the first university-based police academy in the country will be opening its doors this May.

In conjunction with Onondaga Community College (OCC) and the Public Safety Training Center at the Onondaga Hill, SU’s DPS is creating a regional peace officer academy with a curriculum specifically designed for the university setting.

The academy is the first campus policing based academy in the country – another one of the many reforms DPS Chief Anthony Callisto initiated to better serve the SU community.

‘The unique nature is that it will be taught 90 percent by university law enforcement professionals,’ Callisto said ‘It will focus on policing in the academic setting.’

With the help of Jill Lentz, lieutenant of training and recruitment at DPS, Callisto has designed a program that exceeds the requirements of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services and adds $30,000 to DPS’s training budget.

The Division of Criminal Justice Services requires that a campus peace officer go through 320 hours of training before being certified. The new academy will provide more than 560 hours during a 12 or 14-week program depending upon if the cadet takes the two-week firearms course.

The inaugural session of the academy will begin the last week of May. The summer, a time when campus activity is slowed, was decided as the best time for the academy to alleviate the influence of smaller agencies sending their officers to train.

‘It’s the ideal time for campuses to send people off site,’ Callisto said. ‘We can complete training close to opening of fall semester. It helps people send folks without a dramatic impact on their operation.’

To Frank Lawrence, director of campus safety and security at OCC, the timing of the program is key in his agency’s participation.

‘If I send somebody and the training is in September, I can’t afford to send five people. But during the summer time I can do that,’ he said. ‘Especially for a small department, we are not taking the person off line. It bodes well for the campuses.’

The community college system in New York state recently had many of its agencies promoted to peace officer status – a rank that has all of the powers of a typical police officer but only within their authorized jurisdiction. With the designation comes a need for state certified training, something the new academy will provide.

In addition to OCC, Herkimer Community College, Tompkins Cortland Community College and Hudson Valley Community College have expressed interest in sending officers to attend. Private universities, like Ithaca College, have also expressed interest.

‘I have had people from New Jersey and Connecticut asking to send their people,’ Callisto said. ‘What we would like to do is institutionalize it as an annual academy.’

The curriculum for the academy is not yet set in stone. Among other courses, fitness testing, law classes, arrest procedure and criminal investigation techniques will be covered by the program. The academy will provide all the training of a normal police academy – but the material will be taught through the lens of university policing.

Adam Wheeler, a DPS officer who will be the supervisor of the new academy, said there’s a difference between city and university police officers.

‘They do different things, they need different training, and this is something we are working to provide – training for peace officers in a university setting,’ Wheeler said.

Officer Robert Dugan of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Police Department went to a normal police academy for his training but finds some of what he learned inapplicable to a university setting.

‘I came here, and what I learned at the academy was not what I had to do. I have to be much more community service-oriented,’ Dugan said. ‘You are working with your community. It is not the same as if you’re a beat cop.’

Dugan said after finishing up at the academy, he wanted to be very proactive and use what he’d learned.

‘Never finding a reason to use (his academy training) is just part of the job and you get adjusted to it,’ he said. ‘I got used to it, but I still keep (the training) in the back of my mind.’

Ninety percent of the program will be taught by current DPS staff, with the other 10 percent of the faculty composed of specialized training personnel who are certified in areas such as firearms or domestic abuse training.

By using in-house personnel to staff the school during the slow summer months, DPS is saving thousands of dollars for its own department and has been able to keep enrollment costs down for other schools. For the past two years, DPS has had to pay upward of $30,000 to put on its own academies, hiring Syracuse Police Department instructors and other specialty instructors to teach the program.

Because of its extensive staff involvement in the project, DPS can send its officers through the academy at no additional cost. Other schools pay $1,200 in tuition for the 12-week program and $1,400 for the 14-week program, per cadet. Housing and a meal plan at OCC is offered for an additional $1,650.

Keeping the cost down was a major goal for Callisto and Lentz.

‘Most of these agencies don’t have $6,000 a person to send people to the academy,’ Callisto said.

By putting on its own academy, DPS can use the extra money in the training budget for other training opportunities.

‘Instead of paying $30,000, that money remains in the training budget, and now we look at other training opportunities throughout the year,’ Lentz said. ‘We do training for our already in-house staff.’

That means sending current officers to specialized training conferences throughout the year. In the next month DPS will be sending six officers to a vehicle and traffic stop course in Oswego and four officers to a field training officer certification program at Rutgers.

‘We really are able to do three things (with the new academy),’ Callisto said. ‘We are able to have professional training at a period of time that works best for us. We are able to provide our officers with campus specific law enforcement training to get the skills necessary to protect the students, faculty and staff. And three, we get do it in a cost-effective way.’

mwwoolle@syr.edu