 Well good afternoon parents and guardians of Fairfield University students I would like to welcome you to the university here My name is Todd Palazza. I'm the director of public safety at the university I've been here for 39 years now, and I'd also like to introduce my associate My name is John Richie. I'm the assistant director here at in public safety at Fairfield University. I'm going on 22 years here now Basically we're here to help your students Succeed and how we do that is both simple and complex Our mission really is to provide a safe and secure environment for your students to thrive and learn in We're authorized to prevent Report and investigate any violations of state federal laws as well as university regulations We our jurisdiction is strictly on campus We do not patrol the beach area or any areas that are off campus to us any incidents that would involve Off-campus locations would include the Fairfield police department. How do we do that? We provide a variety of different services you think of us very similar to a local police department However, we're much more service-oriented We provide escort services 24 hours a day. So if someone felt uncomfortable Walking from one spot to another on campus public safety officers would be more than happy to provide an escort We do self-defense classes throughout the year We have a campus ride-along program where students can ride along with public safety officers and get to know us a little better As well as see what our duties are We also have a medical amnesty program again. Our interest is in the safety of our students. So if someone Say was intoxicated to the point where they felt they needed medical attention if they or a third party called us We would certainly be able to assist them without any ramifications or disciplinary action All of our officers are certified emergency medical technicians. So we provide a lot of the primary care As well as crisis care in the medical field Our officers carry a full range of equipment to provide that service. We also teach on campus We do CPR training as well as run an EMT class We have crime prevention classes throughout the year and residence hall programs There's a lot more that we do but that's just a tip of the iceberg on some of our duties Some safety tips that we'd always like to recommend You've probably heard me say this during orientation, but if your sons and daughters are locking their Bedroom doors at your house that might be an issue Here we try to educate them to do that. It's very important crime is very low on the campus However, anything could happen anywhere at any time and what we want to do is educate our students to lock their doors Even if they're going away for a short time Just as important our residence halls are locked 24 hours a day Students access the building through their stag card and we ask our students not to prop doors open This really defeats the system and can be easily We can increase our safety very easily just by not propping doors open We also ask our students to be aware of their surroundings to have that 360 degree sense of awareness about them to walk in high-traveled areas and to stay in well-lit areas Also to walk with friends and use local phone services and to report any suspicious activity or crimes to public safety As soon as possible so we can address those situations So when when should people contact us? Any situation that seems out of the ordinary or out of the normal range Okay Before things blow up. We want people to give us a call any unusual noises screams breaking glass things of that nature Also, if they recognize someone that may seem out of place and things just don't seem right to them would much rather Check things out go on calls that turn out to be very innocent in nature then let something happen and go unreported All right, so how do you get in touch with the Department of Public Safety? You know most of the time everyone has their cell phone with them So we ask that you give us a call on your cell phone We actually want the students to pre-program our number into their cell phone before they need us our phone numbers 203 254 4090 And we in we don't expect students to really remember that number Remembering the 4090 part might be easy. Remember we're in area code 203 is easy But you can remember the whole 203 254 4090 so we want to encourage everyone to put that number in their phone already We have blue light emergency phones around campus our co-blue phones So anyone walking around campus looking for the blue light. We have a blue light on top of a blue pole To make the phone visible after dark so you could find those throughout campus We also have one every residence hall in every residence building on each floor in each residence hall So phones are always available to students to be able to contact us plus the elevators all have phones inside of them So it's pretty easy to find a way to reach out to us and contact us Another way of reaching out to us is through an emergency app. I'll actually talk about the emergency app here in just a minute The Fairfield Jew web page our DPS web page actually has an anonymous tip Option as well. So if a student wants to send us information anonymously They can certainly do that through a tip to text option on our website And then of course anyone can walk to our office. We're located in the little hall room, too That's the ground floor of Loyola Hall But if I come back to the emergency app We recently purchased a new app option for the university community and that's the emergency app and On our smartphones now we could download this app when students set it up They'll be able to simply open the app hit a red button. It'll not automatically report Incidents to our office on the screen that's similar to what you see here It'll automatically start to stream audio and video right to our dispatch center So our dispatcher has the ability to see and hear what's going on So somebody's having an issue on campus. They're concerned about a suspicious person. They think somebody's following them A fight breaks out or whatever might be happening. They can use this app The dispatch will be able to see what's going on and relay that information to responding officers the app students can download the app And set it up for themselves and during the setup phase they have the option of putting in personal information Obviously their name and phone number would be quite critical to us They could put a photograph of themselves in there as well So now we know who we're concerned with Upon response and they could go in and put in other biological information. They could put in medical Information if somebody has a known medical condition and they want us to be aware of it And they hit the button during a medical crisis when we arrive will actually have that information at our fingertips So if you your sons and daughters do have a condition, we'd recommend putting that info in there The other information is all confidential We cannot activate the app from our office the student or the community member has to activate the app themselves All right, so any information that they put in there? Just sits there. We are unable to access it until the student activates the emergency app So big brothers not watching Other ways we can get in touch with us the stagger alert system It's our way of notifying the community of a problem on campus We use the stagger alert system in a dire emergency It's how we're going to notify the community of a crisis that's occurring right now but we'll also use the stagger alert system notify that the campus community of delayed openings due to weather conditions or Early cancellations and we'll use it for other basic information It's gives us a lot of options of reaching out to the community to keep them informed of what's going on The stagger alert system students are automatically enrolled into the stagger alert system All we ask is the student ensures that they maintain their updated cell phone numbers in the System so when they go into what we call our my dot fair filled Link that the student maintains their actual up-to-date phone number and students are automatically enrolled the Unfortunately though it only is students and employees who enroll so parents unfortunately you do not get this information So something was to happen on campus It would be up to your sons or daughters to notify you or keep you up on what's going on What's the latest and one of the things we encourage you to do is go? to the university website and We would put detailed information out about any situation that parents should be aware of also the app Emergency has the ability to have three contact people involved So your sons and daughters will Have to put at least one contact person in there it automatically goes to DPS But they could put three other contacts in it So that can be reported to you if you talk to your son or daughter they can do that right back to the stagger alert system the Stagler system we have the ability to reach out to people's cell phones via text email or voice and we have the options Just choosing which one we're going to send out depending on the nature of the emergency or situation The other we have are timely warnings The timely warning is a piece of information that we're going to share with the university community To keep the community up to date on recent trends Specifically if we're worried about crime trends on campus if we have a recent rash of car break-ins We would share that information on what we we call a timely warning and timely warnings will go out by email Depending on the nature of the threat may also include a text message We the reason we share that information so students could be aware of what's going on and they can also become our eyes and ears out there You know we have a limited number of staff in the campuses over 200 acres So it's difficult for us to be everywhere all the time But when we have 2000 students up and about at any given time They become eyes and ears for us and if they are aware that there's a problem going on They see something that relates to that problem They're more apt to give us a call and let us know that they see something So we like using the timely warnings very much Close circuit television we have over 350 cameras throughout the campus both interior and exterior cameras At this point all of our entrances to the university are equipped with a camera system So we could see who is entering and exiting the campus all of our residence halls also have closed circuit television Parking the the third wheel on every campus Parking is very limited on campus as you saw during move-in day Um We do not allow first-year students and sophomores to have cars on campus. There are very limited Exceptions, but they are only for extreme situations And very critical situations and very timely situations We have a shuttle bus service though that goes throughout the town. There are two routes And we encourage our students to utilize that We also have zip card service on our campus So if anyone wanted to enroll in that program they could purchase somewhat like leasing or renting a vehicle for the day All right emergency guidelines response options Some of the things that we do um, we like to educate our community and we we recently did talk to um The incoming first-year students the other night we talked about some of the the You know the more serious incidents that could potentially occur on a college campus But our response options when we send out alerts We're going to send out an alert and they'll say something maybe shelter in place or lockdown Evacuation and we're going to try to give as much information as we can But basically speaking shelter in place is letting people know that there's a problem right now that we want you to Kind of hide out or stay right where you are, you know freeze Don't move don't walk around try not to go to a particular area on campus We have the lockdown the lockdown is is a more severe threat Um, we send out a lockdown warning We're actually going to ask people to lock the doors lock themselves inside something if they're outside We want them to get someplace very very safe Um get inside where they're they're locked down out of sight out of mind And then the evacuation in the event that we had to evacuate we'd send out an evacuation notice Um, we would try to be very specific with an evacuation Um, obviously fire alarms are very common practices for for evacuations We all learned about how to to evacuate from a building in kindergarten So that really hasn't changed but evacuations depending on the scenario situation. We'll send that message out as well One of the other things we do is um DPS on our website. We have a violent intruder training video available for both students and an optional one for employees And we highly encourage everyone to watch that violent intruder video or shots fired on campus Um, it's pretty informative to kind of give an insight on what Expectations are what you the individual can do to prepare yourself what you the individual can do to protect yourself And then it talks a little bit about law enforcement response Um, we do a lot of training in preparation for some of the severe incidents that could potentially occur In today's society We do a lot of training Well, we found out that the community lacks that training or lacks the understanding of the expectations of what might occur So that video it's 22 minutes long for the student version. Um, and we we encourage everyone to watch it We recently did um present the video to all the um residents who are the new First year students who are residing on campus So they all had an opportunity to take a look at it, but it is available on our website So anyone can pretty much hit the link and watch the video And we would encourage you to look at our DPS website You can go on our website We have a lot of information about the department other services that we provide that I haven't been able to explain to you this afternoon Um, so there is a very good website for you to take a look at All right, you have to have a plan Um, we don't know when something's gonna happen. It's great to watch the weather and have an understanding We know this past weekend. It was a lot of talk about a potential hurricane Um, we were really concerned We had a big plan how we're gonna move everyone in in the event that we have a heavy rains and high winds And then sunday came around for the first year students move in it was gorgeous. It was a perfect move-in day All right, the sun was out the temperatures were cool Um, and it was ideal. It truly was ideal But we had a plan just in case Um, and we want everyone else to have a plan as well. Now, what do what does our plan need to entail? Well, Obviously, we can't plan for everything because we just don't know what's going to happen next But we are in southern canada kit. Okay southern new england and it does snow here Um, if we do get blizzards, we will get Uh, 24 inches of snow or better. Occasionally Um, we might see one snow storm after another so snow starts to pile up Um, so we want people who are in this area, especially if you're not from the new england area If you're not used to snow, um, try to figure out how to deal with it How to cope with it and have a plan So emergency supplies a shovel in the car Make a world of difference keeping an extra coat in the car gloves in the car So anyone from the from uh, the northern hemisphere knows it's nice in the wintertime to keep some spare stuff in the car But what about your room? You want to keep stuff in your room supplies in your room? Um, and that's just talking about weather hurricanes have been known to hit the area We know for those people are from the tri-state area. Um, we all remember Flooding and issues like that. So um, although Fairfield University's campus is probably far enough away from the beach line That we're not too concerned with uh, flooding on campus from the ocean But we do have our students that live at the beach Who are often affected by this and we do bring them on to campus They have a place to stay in safety But in the event of prolonged power outages, for example, we may have to close the school Other things that might strain the transportation system in the northeast We might have to close the school because we might be unable to get supplies to the campus to feed the students So sometimes occasionally we may send people home. So we say have a plan or know your secondary escape routes We all know to have a primary escape route. Where's the red exit sign? Um, how do I leave the classroom and get outside? But how do we leave campus? How would I go home if we had to shut the campus down for an emergency? Um, you know, everyone knows the driving routes, but what are the trains? What are the plane schedules? Um, how can I get to the train station? Um, who else lives in my area? Um, so if you're from upstate new york, who else is from upstate new york? So maybe we could do a lot of ride sharing options Um, so there's a lot of things to start to consider just in case now We hope nothing ever happens. We hope to never shut the school down and send everyone home We prefer to keep everyone here. We prefer to keep pushing forward But just in case how else can we achieve our goal? And how else can we keep the student community safe? So that's a very quick overview on the department of public safety and who we are and some of the services we provide We're very excited to have the class of 2020 here At this point we'd like to open it up to questions from you So we had a few questions the first one where can the dates of the self defense classes be found? Is there a fee? If so, how much are the students made aware of classes or encouraged to attend? So the rad program or rape aggression defense we offer the rad program Um, every semester. I don't believe we picked our our dates yet for this particular semester But we should be doing it very very soon What we're going to do is part of our welcome back um To the community offerings is we will send officers out to each residence halls within the next week To to personally knock on every door welcome people back ask them if they have any concerns to make some one-on-one contacts and personal information And when we do go around we will have our rad dates pretty much set the rad program is free of charge Right now we only offer it to females It is a 16 hour program that will usually run on fork Separate nights We tend to like to do them on tuesdays and thursdays for two weeks in a row So you get 16 hours of training out of that We'll advertise that there'll be flyers up In the residence halls we'll have advertisements throughout the campus as well Uh, great one parent is asking how large the dps staff is Okay, so we have 20 full-time officers and several part-time officers Uh, generally we have four plus officers on any given shift Perfect, um, and how frequently are dps officers trained? Um, we provide a variety of different training topics Pretty much what a police officer would receive Plus other training topics that are unique to the university Perfect, uh, one parent is asking if you could just review the medical amnesty policy again Sure, so if uh, someone was ill because of intoxication or a friend was ill because of intoxication and wanted to get medical help They can call our department And there would not be any judicial ramifications behind getting help One parent is asking what are the most prevalent crimes on campus Petty theft Our biggest problem on this campus is getting students to keep their their doors locked Um, you know a lot of some of the residence halls they'll walk out of their door They'll walk down the hall to use the restroom and by the time they get back someone had already entered the room and took something small from them Um, we used to see this a lot with uh cds dvds Would disappear very quickly Although we see a big reduction in cds and dvds out there But that's pretty much how it happens. It's somebody leaves something on their desk. Somebody leaves something visible Go out of the room without locking the door. Someone comes in looking for them realizes. They're not there, but sees an opportunity to take something Right from the desktop. It only takes a few short seconds We also see the same issue occurring in the library students get very comfortable in our library As we would want them to But when you leave a valuable thing sitting on a desktop and then you go look for a particular book in the stacks Um, you might be gone for five minutes from your desk and come back and realize somebody took a thumb drive Out of your computer or somebody took your cell phone that you left sitting on the table It doesn't happen often. I'm sure it doesn't happen that often, but that would be our biggest issue on this campus and we would encourage people to Uh get those cable locks for their laptops. It's a good investment That actually goes along with the next question one parent said I have heard that there Were a lot of robberies in regis hall last year and that it was a huge problem What is security doing to ensure that this doesn't happen this year? I also heard that In the building there aren't security cameras in the hallway So each residence hall now has camera systems on every floor Um, we just had the the security cameras last year And there was one particular night where three individuals walked around the residence hall Going into students unlocked rooms and taking items Um, so we had two non students or excuse me three non students and then one student Host that brought them to campus that accompanied them around Once we learned that the people were in the building and maybe entering rooms We quickly apprehended them And then the use of the cctv system allowed us to figure out Where they were in the building what rooms they entered and we were actually able to go to students and say Hey, we think somebody entered your room and took something and brought the information to them And arrests were made in that situation Great, and maybe you could go into the guest policy a little bit more as well So the Fairfield University guest policy students are allowed to have two guests for two nights Um, if you're going to have a guest for more than two consecutive nights You do have to get permission from both your roommate And your area coordinator is the residence hall area coordinator to have a guest for more than that All guests on campus are required to be registered in advance So students have the ability to go into an online program To register their guests so we know exactly who the guest is that's coming in advance Guests who do come to campus are required to be Escorted by their student hosts at all times Guests are required to have state issued photo identification So that if we do come across and we'd be able to positively identify them Great just two more questions. Do you ever test the stag alert system? Yes, each semester we do a test of the stag alert system And what is DPS's relationship with town of fairfield police? We have a great working relationship with the fairfield police department. I regularly meet with the administrative staff From fairfield as well as state and federal law enforcement. We do a lot of co-training together as well Perfect. Those are all the questions. Well, thank you very much