Callahan Hall will soon play home to a new university police substation, which will make the campus police more accessible and visible to students, according to Jason Willis, university police chief.
Arnie Slaughter, director of University Housing, said he hopes this connects residents to the university police.
“Our hope is that residents will feel like they can stop by and say hello, or stop by and ask a question if they need to.”
Willis said that the substation will not be staffed all the time, nor will there be any set hours. He expects officers to spend an hour in the substation during their shifts, so it will be staffed from time to time.
Both Slaughter and Willis said that this was not an answer to the arson attempt in Callahan last month.
Willis said this is something that the campus police have been working on setting up for months, with getting the right equipment in there. Willis said that right now, that point is probably two weeks away.
Officers will then be able to write reports in the substation, instead of having to go to the main office.
Slaughter said that there weren’t any current plans to put substations in the residential village on campus. One thing that he does hope will be implemented in the next few years is what he called the “police liaison program.”
With this program, a specific police officer is assigned to a residence hall. The officer helps out with events there and gets a chance to connect with residents.
Slaughter said that, when working at Miami University as a residence hall director, he worked with Willis in Miami’s police liaison program, so he hopes that both he and Willis will be able to implement the program at NKU.
According to Slaughter, the space has been designated in Callahan for the campus police since 2008, when it first opened.
Before now, the space was used to house computer forensics equipment until room could be made in the station on Johns Hill Road.
“I just want to make sure that we are utilizing that space to its maximum potential,” said Willis in an email.
Willis said that more than anything, “I just want students to know that it’s [the substation] there and it’s a resource they can use.”