Bradley University Police Department is here not only to protect us, but to make personal connections along the way
Their perspective on campus relationships
On a chilly fall evening while students are bustling around campus, the Bradley University Police Department is on duty as usual. It’s already dark outside, but some veteran officers are just checking in for their shifts. Dressed in full gear and ready to begin a long night, two officers took the time to sit down with me and talk about what it's like policing a college campus.
Lieutenant Noralee Fales and Sergeant Nicholas McCumber are two officers who are very familiar with Bradley’s campus and the surrounding community. Outside of their normal cop duties, they want to emphasize that they are here to make connections with the students, and take pride in the human aspects of the job.
“We want people to know that we are definitely not the enemy. We are here for the students and we’re here for the community,” said Fales. Both officers stressed that there are a lot of good interactions that people don’t generally see, especially with the animosity surrounding cops in general these days.
While connections and relationships are valued, it takes effort to create those with the constant turnover of students every few years. “You really need to push to get out to know people because they’re gone before you know it,” said McCumber. That is the biggest difference in terms of university campus police departments and city police departments. BUPD doesn’t necessarily have the chance to get to know people and families over twenty to thirty years.
However, they find ways to make relationships any way they can. Sergeant McCumber was a student at Bradley before he started his career, so he is very comfortable with the whole community. There are also opportunities to get to know families through the school, especially through homecoming or alumni weekends, or even move-in weekends.
“I will inevitably run into people and they’ll say, ‘Do you remember me from when I was a student here?’... and we’ll sit and talk, and they’re now coming back with their child,” said Fales.
Another way that BUPD stays connected to the students is through their social media platforms. Through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, they are able to reach a larger amount of people. “In this age, we’ve found that we connect both with students and the parents very well through the media,” said McCumber. McCumber, who runs the Communication Team of BUPD, expressed how it has been a very positive addition to their department.
To connect with BUPD’s social accounts, click these links: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
As far as campus safety goes, there are lots of training sessions to attend where they teach self-defense. BUPD does classes with campus groups such as sororities and fraternities, athletic teams, and anyone who would like to join a group at the Markin Rec Center. Abbie Draper, a Bradley student and athlete, explains her experience with this training by saying, “It feels good to know they (BUPD) really cares about our safety to the point that they are willing to spend time with us in person on it.”
Even as they are working on duty, officers appreciate when students come up and talk to them like regular people. One way BUPD tried to make this happen more often is by hosting “Coffee with a Cop.”
“[Coffee with a Cop] gives [students] a chance to just come up, no pressure… and talk with us,” McCumber explained. He believes that Coffee with a Cop is a small event that brought some sort of normalcy back to campus as Covid-19 restrictions began to loosen in the past year. “There’s an awful lot of students that have never talked to a police officer,” he stated, which was another reason for creating the event. It’s a way to make students feel more comfortable.
“We’re not only here to do our job as police officers,” says Fales, “We’re here for more than that. [Students] are talking to us just as an adult, and they just need somebody to be there for them or listen to them.”