Announcing the 2023 Campus Safety Higher Education and Healthcare Director of the Year Finalists
Congratulations to this year’s college, university, and hospital finalists in our Director of the Year awards program!
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Campus Safety is pleased to announce the 2023 higher education and hospital Director of the Year finalists.
Being an effective campus security, public safety, and/or emergency management executive requires ingenuity, diligence, and flexibility… qualities this year’s finalists had in spades. Just check out some of the accomplishments of this year’s finalists. They include: 
- Lobbying for and receiving officer salary increases
- Hiring interns so officers could focus on higher priorities
- Developing procedures and systems to enable data-informed decisions
- Writing and winning grants
- Installing and/or upgrading video surveillance, access control, emergency notification, and other security and life-safety systems
- Providing equity and inclusion training to officers
- CALEA and IACLEA accreditation
- Developing a corporate pandemic plan
- Decreasing crime on campus by 30% in three years
All this and much more was achieved, despite many finalists’ departments being understaffed and underfunded. Be sure to click on their profiles and photos below to see what else they’ve accomplished.
The Higher Education/Healthcare Campus Safety Director of the Year Finalists Are
- William Adcox, Vice President, Chief of Police and Chief Security Officer, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas: View his profile and photos.
- Kenton Ferrin, Director of Campus Safety, Vanguard University, Costa Mesa, California: View his profile and photos.
- Cesar Gracia, Director of Public Safety/Chief of Police, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee: View his profile and photos.
- Michael Jagoda, Deputy Chief, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island: View his profile and photos.
- Eric James, Chief Campus Security Administrator/Police Chief, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, Nevada: View his profile and photos.
- Thomas Leone, Assistant Vice President of Public Safety/Chief of Police, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland: View his profile and photos.
- Marcus Lyles, Executive Director and Chief of Police, Howard University, Washington, D.C.: View his profile and photos.
- Calvin Millar, Director of Public Safety and Parking Services, William Osler Health System, Milton, Ontario, Canada: View his profile and photos.
- Jason Schiffer, Assistant Vice President of Campus Safety/Chief of Police, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: View his profile and photos.
Winners of this year’s Director of the Year award will be announced at Campus Safety Conference West, taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 10-12. For more information and to register for the event, visit CampusSafetyConference.com.
Read about the K-12 school and school district finalists.
Congratulations to all of our finalists, and good luck!
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About the Author
Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief
Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.
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