Whether rain, snow, sleet or locked out of your car – the Park University Campus Safety department is on the job 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Campus Safety officers are first responders for any campus emergency. Thia Tomasich, senior dispatcher for Campus Safety, recommended that anyone with an emergency on campus contact her office at 584-6444 instead of calling 911.
“It takes three minutes for the call to be routed back to (Kansas City Police Department) because the first cell tower that picks up the call is across the river in Kansas,” Tomasich said.
All campus security officers are First Aid and AED certified and they can handle many campus requests from unlocking cars, jump starts and escorts late at night.
The officers have to be on campus, regardless of circumstances, to ensure campus security. They watch for any potential hazard, they maintain safety each day, monitor campus surveillance and troubleshoot some IT technological difficulties.
Officer Adam Shirley, 22, said the best thing about about his role as a Security Officer at Park is people.
“I love talking to the people,” he said.
However, the job does come with some drawback.
“The amount of walking that I do,” he said.
There are between two to three officers working at all times and one dispatcher working. The department runs on three shifts that enable it to stay open around the clock.
Shirley usually works the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift and in the first thing he does in the morning is patrol which can include helping jump start cars and other “little randoms.” He said his shifts during the day time are mainly to “deal with people.”
One of the little known duties Campus Safety officers complete when most of the Park community is sleeping, like campus elves, is patrol through the whole campus – inside and out of all buildings – three times from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Most buildings are locked up at 10 p.m. after evening classes conclude. Around 2 a.m., officers go through the entire campus and do what they call a “check-check”, in which ever door is checked and every building is looked over to make sure there are no signs of break-ins.
“Uninterrupted, it takes three hours to do an entire campus ‘check-check’,” Shirley said.
Then, at about 5:30 a.m., they go back through the whole campus to make sure everything is open and prepared for a new school day.
Tomasich reiterated that just because security officers issue parking tickets and are thought of as security that she would like students to think of Campus Safety as safety.
“Unfortunately, that’s how the majority of the student body sees us, but that’s not all we do,” said Shirley about security roles. “ I don’t like writing tickets, but it’s a necessary part of what we do.”
