Public Safety capitalizes on Orange Police Department partnership to strengthen university proposal

In attempts to stay in good standing with the City of Orange so that a university proposal to increase student enrollment is approved, Chapman University may extend the number of weeks the Orange Police Department patrols local neighborhoods to crack down on off-campus parties.

Chapman University will make at least an estimated $43,000 contribution to the Orange Police Department, using funds allocated to Public Safety’s budget. Photo illustration by NICO VALENTINE, Staff Photographer.

The Black Student Union (BSU) protest and the student petitions circulating against the partnership between Chapman University and the Orange Police Department (OPD) didn’t prompt the Sept. 17 Public Safety town hall meeting, said President Daniele Struppa. Instead, the event was motivated by the university’s commitment, he asserted, to proactively engage in conversations about police accountability.

Continuing a five-year tradition of partnering with OPD during the initial weeks of the fall semester to monitor student conduct, Chief of Public Safety Randy Burba told The Panther they will be contributing a sum of approximately $43,000 to $45,000 to the local police this academic year. The decision comes in the crossfire of student activists, like sophomore psychology major Samantha Jaffe, who started a petition against endorsing law enforcement, and BSU members, who hosted a Sept. 14 Zoom meeting to argue against the heightened OPD presence. 

“I would look at it as a necessary partnership,” Burba said. “My responsibility is to protect my community, the Chapman community – all the faculty, students and staff that congregate here daily to live, work and learn. My job is to keep them safe and I should really be using any tools I can to do that.”

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Harold Hewitt stated the university has a responsibility to remain in good standing with the City of Orange, an entity that can take action against the university if they find the students are not cooperating with COVID-19 regulations and posing a threat to the health and safety of the community. 

Furthermore, every seven to 10 years, the university’s application for land use is updated and requests for alterations can be easily denied by the city, Hewitt said. As Chapman administration is proposing an increase in the number of enrolled students, the decision to fund OPD was driven in part to maintain the university’s community standing and to pay OPD for the services they perform for the non-profit university that are otherwise not compensated for.

“There’s a general sense of understanding in the community that Chapman is not contributing to the city’s coffers in the way that for-profit business does,” Hewitt said. 

With the net tuition and fees loss for the 2020-2021 academic year predicted at an estimated $60.5 million after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hewitt emphasized the importance behind an approved Chapman proposal to increase student enrollment from 8,700 to 10,500. However, if students are contracting the coronavirus from disruptive parties and the proposition is denied as a result, efforts to mitigate the projected financial loss won’t be successful.

“The most immediate way that the city could keep us accountable – in a manner that would be deeply detrimental to the future plans of the university – would be to not accept that application,” Hewitt said. “That would set the university back 10 years.”

Since Public Safety’s jurisdiction only covers university-owned property, the OPD acts as an extension of Public Safety to oversee students living off campus. 

“OPD has to be the first responder to (off-campus incidents) because it’s in their jurisdiction,” Burba said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t help our students in places like that. We can be invited and go do security surveys for their place, or if they want to talk to a Public Safety officer, they can certainly do that. But any enforcement activity … has to be OPD.”

Struppa told The Panther the partnership with OPD isn’t done with intent to make students feel unsafe. The Sept. 17 town hall was conducted in efforts to resolve any concerns and allow attendees to question panelists on Public Safety policies, one of which asked about guidelines surrounding the use of force and weapons.

“Once you have a gun, the possibility of escalation is there – the level of stress, the tension, the anger,” Struppa said. “So, I’m comfortable with not having weapons on campus.”

Hewitt further elaborated that Public Safety’s budget for the 2020-2021 school year is $3.4 million, $3 million of which is purely attributed to personnel expenses. According to Mike Price, the assistant vice president for Finance and Budget, money granted to OPD is absorbed from Public Safety’s own budget, and may continue to increase based on the amount of time OPD patrol is deemed necessary, which currently extends to Sept. 30.

With the goal to assign about two to four officers on patrol for social distancing violations during peak party nights – Thursday through Saturday – Public Safety may continue their collaboration with OPD past the typical initial weeks of the semester in light of the university’s proposal to the city. Burba revealed that as of Sept. 8, OPD has responded to 24 calls related to off-campus parties and one party that saw over 50 people in attendance.

Public Safety is working to become accredited by campus law enforcement associations, to deliver annual training to its officers and to modify policies that outline disciplinary actions for officers who abuse their power or don’t intervene upon witnessing an abuse of power. Struppa and Burba are hopeful they can build more trust with students by implementing these external recommendations from August Washington, the senior associate vice chancellor for Public Safety and Special Initiatives at Vanderbilt University.

“Campus public safety, they need to be seen as our friends – people that can help us, people that you can call and they are on your side to defend you and support you,” Struppa said. “We want to make sure students understand that if they perceive a problem, we need to be made aware. Because if we don’t know, we can’t fix it and then resentment builds up.”