In February, the Office of Safety and Security will formally embark on an accreditation program with the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), the highest accreditation available for campus public safety departments. This is the first time Security will be nationally accredited.
Associate Director of Safety and Security David Profit hopes that Security will become fully accredited within two years.
IACLEA includes members at nearly 1,200 colleges and universities in 10 countries. Security is seeking accreditation with the group in order to improve its practices and procedures.
“What they do is essentially they look to identify best practices and look at situations that involve high risk or might be of low incidence and try to establish a system to have standards,” Profit said.
The current IACLEA Accreditation Standards Manual lists 210 standards, which address a variety of issues pertaining to subjects like evidence collection, officer training, Title IX and community engagement.
For the past year, Security has been conducting a self-study to begin tailoring its practices to IACLEA standards. Once Security formally begins the process, it will have three years to complete the accreditation. After the accreditation is approved by an outside assessor, IACLEA will check in every three years to ensure Security continues to meet its standards.
“Becoming nationally accredited has been a goal of mine ever since I’ve been here at Bowdoin,” said Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols.
Profit belives the accreditation process will be fairly smooth.
“It’s a long process, but once you get there it’s fairly easy to manage,” Profit said. “But it’s a team effort. It’s not just [Nichols] and I. We have our supervisors heavily involved and our assistant director because they’ve got their fingers on the pulse as well, and they’re out there doing this stuff every day.”