MSU Department of Police and Public Safety, or MSU DPPS, has centralized its safety and security operations into one unit under the MSU Operations Center. The center will provide 24/7 monitoring capabilities, 2,000 campus-wide security cameras, electronic control access to buildings and more all under one roof.
By the end of this year, most of the general organizational and functional change will be in place.
“This centralization gives us the ability to monitor in real time between campus areas 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a single location,” MSU Deputy Spokesperson Dan Olsen said.
After the appointment of Vice President of Public Safety and Chief of Police Marlon Lynch, a full assessment of all security systems and operations with external consultants was led.
“It was truly a top-down full gamut of reviewing security on campus,” public safety operations director John Prush said.
Several organizations worked separately to maintain MSU’s safety prior to the centralization. ContactMSU and ContactIPF provided dispatch services for students and IPF’s emergencies, Ingham County 911 led police and law enforcement dispatch and a 24-hour student-run police cadet service desk monitored access control alarms and gave logistic support to law enforcement.
“There’s some efficiencies that can be gained when you look at the current setup,” Prush said. “It’s taking all those pieces that are currently existing but bringing them all together, … so we can truly work smarter, not harder.”
In this last year, the university has taken various safety efforts including:
Formation of Proactive Engagement and Community Enhancement team, or PEACE, a new partnership with the East Lansing Police Department to focus on stopping criminal activity through education, encouraging community safety and crime prevention
Replacing over 1,900 lights across campus with more efficient and brighter LED bulbs and integrating more than 1,000 new light fixtures
Installation of more than 300 cameras, which includes operational cameras in all residence halls
Launch of SafeMSU — an app that connects the Spartan community with safety resources
According to Prush, SafeMSU contains features that have not been enabled yet due to the lack of a central operations center, but the MSU community can expect SafeMSU to connect seamlessly with the operation center soon.
“We’ll be turning on additional features and really pushing that app,” Prush said. “We’ll be more efficient when it comes to responding to safety and security issues. If we are very efficient now, this will bring us to the next level, more integrated with the rest of the campus operations.”
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