Today

November 2005

Dear Johns Hopkins Students, Faculty, Staff and Parents:

There are a number of important new developments to report in the implementation of the Security Action Plan for the Homewood campus.

We are, for instance, embarking now on Phase 2 of our security technology improvements. We are engaging a new contract guard company with considerable experience in campus work. We are expanding patrols on and off campus and, in response to student comments, refining our evening van transportation services.

Below this message, you will find a detailed update on these and other action items from Ed Skrodzki, the new executive director of campus safety and security.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Ed, his commanders, officers and staff for their fine work. I also thank all the members of the Homewood Safety and Security Committee, a dedicated group of students, parents, faculty and staff that has met frequently since March to advise us on implementation of the action plan.

Special thanks go to the deans on the Homewood campus; they are as dedicated as I am to campus security. At a time of very tight budgets, rapidly rising energy and health care costs, and continuing initiatives to transform undergraduate life, they have worked very hard to identify essential funding for the important improvements we've made.

Finally, my thanks go also to everyone who has contacted us with a comment, a suggestion or, yes, a complaint. This kind of feedback has been essential to the very real progress we have made in enhancing the safety of our Homewood community.

Director Skrodzki and I welcome your continued comments. As developments warrant, we will keep you informed.

Sincerely,
William R. Brody
President
The Johns Hopkins University

The men and women of my office, and the staff of a number of university departments, especially Facilities Management, remain very much involved in the implementation of President Brody's Security Action Plan for Homewood. The plan itself remains available online for your reference at webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/today/security_plan.cfm.

Here are the latest developments:

1. Cameras and other security technology

We have completed the study necessary to plan Phase 2 of our security technology upgrades. As a result of that study, President Brody and the deans have committed an additional $1.9 million to expand and enhance the system. By next spring, we will have installed:

46 additional "smart" closed-circuit television cameras, in addition to the 32 that have been operational since spring.

A state-of-the-art security communications center, bringing together in one location the current security dispatch office and the interim camera-monitoring center established last spring.

A computer-aided dispatch system and security record management system.

For those of you who are new to the university, there is background on the smart CCTV system at www.jhu.edu/news/univ05/apr05/cctv.html.

While the 32 Phase 1 cameras were concentrated around residence halls and along the Charles Street corridor where our students walk day and night, the Phase 2 cameras will be deployed Homewood-wide. There will be coverage around the entire perimeter of campus (Charles Street, University Parkway, San Martin Drive and Wyman Park Drive). We will also cover strategic points inside the campus, add to coverage of residence halls, and cover the Seton Court Building, the Wyman and Stony Run parking lots and the San Martin Center garage.

When the Phase 1 cameras became operational last spring, we also brought online an interim monitoring center at the Office of Facilities Management on Remington Avenue. While we recognized that it would be advantageous to have the camera monitors working side-by-side with Safety and Security's dispatchers, there was no room in the already crowded security offices at Shriver Hall to make that happen immediately.

Up to now, therefore, dispatchers and camera monitors have been in contact by radio and telephone. When the new communications center is installed at Remington, they will be sitting next to each other, with access to the same information and enhanced ability to coordinate their work and to relay that information to officers on patrol.

They will also be using high-tech new computer-aided dispatch and security record management systems. These systems will provide a host of new capabilities that will enable Safety and Security to respond even more quickly and effectively in an emergency and to follow up even more thoroughly in an investigation.

2. Contract security

Another important development involves our contract security force. Since early this year, officers from Broadway Services' Silver Star Security have ably supplemented our staff of sworn campus police officers, providing extra eyes and ears on campus, patrolling nearby streets and staffing residence hall entrances. Silver Star was able to respond to our request for an immediate ramp up in personnel and has demonstrated its willingness and ability to respond nimbly to the university's evolving needs. We very much appreciate the company's contributions to our enhanced security at Homewood.

For the long term, however, we felt it would be only prudent to ask a number of security companies to compete for our business. From that competition, a clear winner emerged. AlliedBarton Security Services will become our contract security provider on Jan. 1. AlliedBarton brings two major competitive advantages to this assignment.

They are committed to and experienced in higher education security, currently serving more than 70 colleges and universities, including Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania. The reference checks we did with peer institutions came back with highly positive reports.

AlliedBarton provides specialized training for their officers assigned to various positions, such as foot patrol, bike patrol, housing access control, facilities security and special events coverage.

You can learn more about the company at www.alliedbarton.com/index.cfm.

3. On- and off-campus patrols

We have added to the number of patrol "posts" on campus, making these "beats" smaller and easier to cover effectively. That has made officers more visible and improves deterrence.

We also have enlarged our program of evening and nighttime foot patrols off-campus by off-duty Baltimore police officers, expanding their coverage to more streets frequented by students, faculty and staff. Those added streets include University Parkway, which already was patrolled by car from 39th Street to Barclay Street.

4. Other developments

We have installed or relocated antennas and transponders to improve communications between security officers and dispatch. I am working with Baltimore police on a plan for direct communication between university and city dispatchers (we currently have to call 911 to summon city assistance). I am scheduling monthly meetings with members of the Student Council and my command staff and I are attending twice-monthly lunchtime forums to meet students and hear their comments and concerns.

Finally, as many of you know, there has been much discussion on campus this fall on changes to our security escort van and shuttle van system. We made these changes in an effort to improve the response time and reliability of the van systems, especially for travel to and from campus. That improved response time will, it is hoped, encourage students to use the vans rather than walk to avoid long waits. As a result of a lot of welcome and valuable feedback after the initial changes, we have now made a number of adjustments designed to make transportation available at additional times and places where students tell us it is needed. We are continuing to work with student representatives to examine and improve these programs.

I hope this latest update has been useful to you. We will continue to send them as developments warrant. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me at eskrodzki@jhu.edu if I can provide any clarifications or answer any questions.