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Graduate Student Life Grants 2006

Community Policing With MIT Graduate Students

October 2004 to November 2005
MIT Police
Lt. Al Pierce, Sgt. Cheryl Vossmer, Officer David O'Connor
Assistance at dinners included: Dean Danielle Guichard-Ashbrook,
Ms. Janet Fischer, Ms. Barrie Gleason

Purpose

During the fall of 2004, we proposed to establish opportunities for the police to learn more about graduate students and their diverse cultures as the graduate students also learn more about the police and the services they provide. Our information-sharing strategies included:

  • Contacting graduate clubs and other groups to set up informal meetings
  • Surveying graduate students via paper surveys and focus groups
  • Inviting individual graduate students and small groups to share a meal and conversation

During the spring of 2005, we planned to work at a larger scale by doing several sorts of public events:

  • Offering presentations to groups at graduate residences and clubs about topics that the fall discussions have indicated are important to graduate students
  • Organizing a Safety Fair for graduate students and their families that will also be open to the MIT community as a whole

We also planned to continue the outreach efforts from the fall so we sustain a growing sense of open discussion, community concerns, and community solutions. Likewise, we planned the Safety Fair to be an enjoyable, educational event where graduate students could interact with other members of the MIT community while they learned about ways to improve their lives at MIT.

Impact

The impact was greater than we had ever anticipated.
The opportunity to interact with graduate students in a relaxed atmosphere and have informal discussions, answer questions and to break down barriers – especially for those who are not accustomed to having police be so helpful.

One dinner in particular stands out in our mind which was held the week between the Christmas and New Year's break. About 50 grad students RSVP'd but over 80 arrived.