With decades of public safety experience behind him, and after serving as Interim Senior Director of Public Safety and Community Engagement since November, Duane Lovello was named head of Public Safety in May. The Office of Public Safety includes the Yale Police Department, Yale Security, the Office of Emergency Management, and Public Safety Systems and Services.
Lovello started at Yale in 2018 as the director of security operations and was later named director of security. Before that, he spent most of his professional career with the Darien Police Department, working in various capacities from police officer to detective and eventually retiring as its Chief of Police. During that time, he earned a B.S. from the University of New Haven and a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law.
What are your responsibilities in your new position?
As concerns arise, we must take the time to listen. If we expect to be effective, we need to hear what’s on the minds of our community members.
Public Safety is part of Campus Services, including Yale Hospitality and the offices overseeing parking, transit, student housing, and mail delivery. Being part of Campus Services is a new dynamic for me. I’ve worked with those groups before, but now we all report to the same senior leader, John Barden, vice president for information technology and campus services. He is helping me navigate the many aspects of Yale that have come with my new role, and it has been an enriching professional experience for me.
My responsibilities center on ensuring that the four public safety verticals — police, security, systems, and emergency management — operate cohesively and efficiently. It’s a collaborative environment, and we try our best to keep things light in difficult situations.
What is your vision for the department’s future?
I want Public Safety to be the best in class. Our services should reflect the standards of the university. That means providing our staff with the best resources, training, and equipment to do their jobs. We also want to have a diverse workforce that reflects the community we serve. We work with New Haven Works to recruit from the local community. Having people of diverse backgrounds enriches the work environment for all of us. Everyone has different lived and learned experiences, which collectively make us stronger.
Are there any challenges or opportunities you foresee in implementing your vision?
One of the biggest changes to affect is cultural. Often, people get accustomed doing things the way they’ve always done them, even though that might not be the most efficient or collaborative way. What I want to focus on, and one of the things we’re doing already, is creating a sense of synergy by collaborating more across teams within public safety and other areas. If we can cross-pollinate more, it’s going to be that much better.
We are contemplating the construction of a new security operations center to enhance our ability to monitor all the systems, cameras, and access control points on campus. This new center would combine the current Central Alarm Station, Cultural Properties monitoring center, and the West Campus monitoring center into a single facility with expanded monitoring capability.
Do you plan to implement any specific changes or initiatives for public safety on campus?
I want Public Safety to be the best in class. Our services should reflect the standards of the university. That means providing our staff with the best resources, training, and equipment to do their jobs.
One of the things we must do is retain some agility and keep up with best practices. The large gatherings on campus this past spring made us look inward at our policies, procedures, and training. We want to ensure that if there are opportunities for improvement, we are making them. Also, as concerns arise, we must take the time to listen. If we expect to be effective, we need to hear what’s on the minds of our community members. Letting everyone know they have a voice is the key to our success. We want public safety to be done with people, not to them.
How do you intend to collaborate with other campus departments?
We do a good job of that now, but it’s always a work in progress. The most important part of my job is to listen. Currently, we have many projects with Facilities, including improvements to Parking Lot 47 and along the canal trail near 25 Science Park. We meet with them regularly about security-related issues. I sit on the security committee for Yale New Haven Hospital and frequently talk to their director of protective services. They are excellent partners.
You can’t expect to be successful sitting in your office; you have to be out there and see the places where there are issues. For instance, our committee, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, conducts field visits during the day and at night to look at places that may be problematic and offer recommendations. It’s a very collaborative effort to increase safety measures.
Are there any past experiences or successes from your career that will inform your leadership?
I think the best lessons I’ve learned throughout my career were through failures. As you look to affect change, you must move very deliberately and carefully, and also very thoughtfully. You must talk to people about what you are trying to accomplish before you implement it. I advise my managers to tell the story behind a change or new policy. People will understand it and adjust better if you keep them in the loop or provide the reasons behind why it’s being done.
What do you want your legacy to be here at Yale?
My legacy will be for others to determine. I want people to know that I tried to leave the place better than I found it, and it was in pretty good shape when I came here.
