Musicians have the GRAMMYs, movie actors have the Academy Awards, Broadway performers have the Tony Awards and TV stars have the Emmys. But up until now, campus safety directors and police chiefs really didn’t have an award acknowledging all of their hard work.

Well, dear readers, consider this injustice rectified. Last year, we unveiled the Campus Safety Director of the Year Award to honor the best and brightest in hospital, school and university law enforcement management. The results appear on pages 12-19 of this issue.

And just like those entertainment awards shows, our program had a little drama too. Although Campus Safety magazine originally intended for the Director of the Year Award to go to only one individual, we had too many good entries to choose just a single winner. Instead, we decided it would only be fair to issue two awards this year: One for the healthcare segment of our readership (coverage of which appears in this issue) and another for our readers from the education sector (which will be featured in the March/April issue).

All of us at Campus Safety magazine wholeheartedly congratulate this year’s award recipients: Alan Robinson, director of protection and security services for Morristown, N.J.-based Atlantic Healthcare; and Dolores Stafford, chief of police for The George Washington University based in our nation’s capitol. Additionally, we would like to thank those who submitted nominations but were not selected. The high quality of your entries made the judging process very difficult … but in a good way. I bet the Academy’s job isn’t nearly as tough.

Looking ahead, we encourage hospital, school or university police chiefs and directors of public safety to participate in the 2007 program. And if you know of someone else who is deserving of the Campus Safety Director of the Year Award, we hope you will submit his or her nomination as well.

For all of you award hopefuls out there, we encourage you to read the articles featuring the 2006 award recipients to see just what they did to come out on top. Some examples of outstanding achievement and performance might include:

• A recently implemented or revised campus safety escort program
• Improved officer response times and community interaction
• A significant drop in crime on campus
• Improved communications interoperability
• Increased number and frequency of Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) training programs
• Maintained high officer and employee morale despite setbacks
• Effectively recruited volunteers, leading to greater on-campus officer presence
• Implemented enhanced disaster response strategies, recovery plans and protocols
• Increased the number and frequency of officer training sessions
• Sustained excellent personal and subordinate performance despite significant obstacles
• Improved event planning and revised crowd management tactics

One way to get your nomination noticed is to have it contain specific examples demonstrating why you or your nominee deserves the award. Quantifiable achievements such as cost savings and crime statistics are also very impressive.

The complete judging criteria are online at http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/DirectorOfTheYear/ and can provide additional guidance. The 2007 entry form will also be available online in March and in upcoming issues of Campus Safety magazine.

Congratulations again to the 2006 winners. May the 2007 nominees be as fabulous. Here’s to a new year of prize-worthy campus safety and security!

Robin Hattersley Gray is executive editor of Campus Safety Magazine and can be reached at robin.gray@bobit.com.

For the unabridged version of this article, please refer to the January/February 2007 issue of Campus Safety Magazine. To subscribe, go to https://www.secure-mag.com/CSM_Subscribe/.

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