Yale Public Safety All Hands meeting April 30, 2021

    May 13, 2021

    Ronnell Higgins, Director of Public Safety and Chief of Yale Police, hosted another Public Safety All Hands meeting on Friday, April 30, 2021 — it was broadcast live via Zoom. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together the entire Yale Public Safety organization, including police, security, and systems. The goal was to ensure everyone receives the same information and messages.

    After welcome remarks, the Chief provided some updates on the COVID pandemic, the latest crime statistics, and the recent rash of hate crimes across the country against the Asian American community. He shared with everyone a new core message and future narrative of Yale Public Safety:  Maintain a safe living, learning, and working environment in partnership with all whom we serve.

    As part of this, the Chief talked about how the department will achieve this objective by following several priorities. Those included:

    1. Leveraging the right resources to address public safety needs. This includes taking police officers out of situations that don’t require them. (As many know, the term for this is “differential response.”)
    2. Engaging the community in multiple ways—listening to every voice and ensuring access and reach.  We want those we serve to feel public safety and policing at Yale are done for them and with them, not to them.  
    3. Embracing continuous improvement. That means strengthening training, systems, processes, and services informed by Yale’s expertise. This will help to ensure accountability, transparency, and alignment with the needs of the community.
    4. Strengthening the Public Safety ecosystem and infrastructure as a unified University-wide asset.

    Lastly, the Chief briefly discussed upcoming events on campus, including commencement and staff’s return to campus. He then turned it over to consultants, Jeff and Tanya Mann, who organized several break-out groups. The purpose of the groups is to discuss capturing the voice of the YPS team. This includes how to continuosly improve community engagement and communication. The consultants would collect notes from each break-out group and share them with YPS leadership.