UPD seeks to educate students via GOLD Workshop

The University Police Department [JM1] (UPD) is in the process of creating a Geneseo Opportunities for Leadership Development (GOLD) Workshop named “Know Your Rights” to educate students on the constitutional rights that citizens have, the constitutional rights that police officers have, and how the two are connected. The GOLD Workshop will most likely be open in late November.

Inspector Kurt Nolan, an experienced officer with UPD, explained the goals of the workshop. “I think that policing in general has done a bad job of educating the public.” Nolan said. “The major goal of my class is to show you what [Police] do, why we do it and where the lines of our authority end.”

In his time as and investigator, Nolan has seen the effects of the public being misinformed on police and their procedures. “What I have found in my career is that people have absolutely no idea what police do, what our authority is, and what the limit of our authority is.”

“A struggle that [police] have is if your community doesn't trust [police], [citizens] are not going to call, or they don't think [police] are going to take their call seriously.” Nolan said. “I've had situations where I find out days after there was a fight or someone was injured, or someone was assaulted or there was a weapon. I'm like ‘nobody called the police for this?’”.

Nolan explained further how educating the public improves police operations. “[Students] will know what's important to report and they will know what a police issue isn’t.”

Some calls for police do not warrant a police response, Nolan explained. “We don't think we should go [to a certain call], it's not because we're being lazy, it's because we don't want to escalate the situation needlessly. Yes, you can call us. Yes, we're going to show up. But the idea is to educate people so that they know the difference between what's a police call and what isn't.”

The GOLD workshop is also an opportunity for students and UPD to get to know each other. “It's also a chance for the community to see our guys and our girls as humans.” Nolan said. According to Nolan, improving the relationship between students and police will improve public safety.

“Educating the public improve public safety because people are going to be more vigilant.” Nolan said. “The better educated the public is, the better intelligence we’re going to have on what's going on in our community, what's important, what are some threats to our community, and how do people feel within the community.”

The GOLD Workshop is also an opportunity for transparency from UPD. Transparency helps students understand how UPD operates and why they operate that way. “Transparency is a huge deal, because when we're showing people what we do, the types of responses that we have, people are going to understand that when we're called, we take things very seriously.” Nolan said.

“I've had times where I take a report seriously, and I've seen students be shocked.” Nolan explained. “I want to eliminate that.”

“I do want our officers out there engaging the community.” Nolan said. “So I think there's a benefit to that.”