After 15 years as director of the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety, Bruce Benson will be stepping down as chief of police.
Assistant Chief Jim Dunlap will take over the position.
University officials announced Monday that Benson would be leaving the department and taking a job as a full-time faculty member with the School of Criminal Justice effective Aug. 1.
“He’s been the police chief for over 15 years, which is quite a bit longer than most chiefs,” said Fred Poston, vice president for finance and operations, who oversees the department. “He’s easing up toward the end of his career and has accomplished what he wanted to accomplish.”
Benson has spent the past few years teaching part time at the school.
“Students respond to his practical experience in the classroom,” he said. “The reviews have been good and he really enjoys it.”
Benson, who graduated from MSU in 1969, came to the MSU police department in 1986 from the Flint Police Department, where he was deputy chief of police.
Poston said one of Benson’s largest accomplishments at MSU was starting the community policing program, which gave people on campus a chance to become familiar with an officer in their area. The number of felonies on campus has gone down from 2,167 in 1987 to 675 in 2000.
“It was good for campus to know those people instead of having officers that move all over campus,” he said. “It resulted in our significant crime rate reducing over time.”
Poston said Benson also upped MSU police department standards.
“We have a fine-quality police force,” he said. “We are not having the types of problems some police forces have - that is geared a lot to Benson’s leadership.”
Dunlap, a 1973 MSU graduate, has been with the department for 32 years serving as an officer, detective, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, deputy chief and for the last two years as assistant chief.
“I’m going to miss (Benson) a lot,” Dunlap said. “He has really done a lot for the department, he put it in the right direction for the future.”
Dunlap said he would like to review and refocus the community policing program on campus. Dunlap also would like to hear ideas for change from around the community.
“The federal government has indicated that with a growing young population, there will be more crime,” he said. “I hope we can avoid that and keep crime rates lower.”
Dunlap will not immediately name someone to take the position of assistant chief, Poston said. The position likely won’t be filled for more than a year, which he says won’t cause any problems in the department.
“We are anticipating some budget problems and will wait until he has retirements in the captain ranks before filling the position,” Poston said. “This will allow him to keep officers on the street.”
Matt Weingarden, internal vice chairperson for ASMSU’s Student Assembly, was surprised to hear Benson was leaving.
The Task Force on Student-Police Relations, of which Benson and Weingarden were members, finished its final draft of recommendations on improving relations Friday.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t step down before the task force.” Weingarden said. “Why was he so adamant about changing the recommendations if he knew he was stepping down?”
Weingarden also said that Dunlap might have a hard time ahead of him when he takes over the job as police chief.
“Whoever takes over the role of chief has a lot of work to do to gain the trust of students,” Weingarden said. “And I don’t see that Dunlap has created strong bonds with the students.”
But Dunlap said attending the task force meetings gave him a good idea of what is important to the students.
“My first priority is that we do what the task force recommended,” he said. “Probably one of the things people notice about me is that I am willing to listen to people’s viewpoints.
“I hope by doing that and being open-minded, a lot of issues won’t be issues.”
Shannon Murphy can be reached at murphy78@msu.edu.
