DPS Chief search in final stage
Two finalists have been selected in the search for a new Department of Public Safety Chief following former Chief John Thomas’ retirement Feb. 12, Associate Senior Vice President of Safety and Risk Assurance, Erroll Southers, announced in a communitywide email Wednesday.
The finalists, whose identities have not been disclosed, were selected unanimously from a pool of 36 candidates in a nationwide search. The search will culminate in two Finalist Community Input Sessions held at Wallis Annenberg Hall April 15. Each will feature a finalist who will answer questions posed by community members. The finalists will then go through a final round of interviews with University leadership before the appointment is announced in May.
Southers led the search process with the help of external executive search firm Spelman Johnson and a 22-person search committee consisting of faculty, staff, students and neighborhood stakeholders. Six Community Input Sessions were held starting Feb. 14, attended by more than 200 members of the community. Two sessions were held solely for DPS personnel.
The selection of the finalists was based on a criteria of five competencies determined as most pertinent to community members during the input sessions: community, communication, diversity, transparency and engagement. The committee chose from a set of candidates with a minimum of five years of experience in campus or community public safety. The final candidates are both currently serving as chiefs and come from universities with diverse constituencies, Southers said during a student media briefing Wednesday.
“Both of these folks are very, very impressive when it comes to community engagement,” Southers said. “They understand the difference between campus public safety and municipal law enforcement, which is why we are selecting them to be the finalists.”
Other key tenets the community brought up and the search committee considered were accountability, integrity, collaboration, team-building and the ability to work in large private institutions and large urban environments, Southers said. The committee drew from the recommendations and priorities described in last year’s Community Advisory Board report, which outlined DPS’ ONE USC Safety Vision, in determining the candidates most capable of encouraging an environment where “everyone feels safe, respected and protected from being a crime victim.”
CAB was created in response to the “national urgency” of evaluating public safety practices, including departmental accountability, transparency, bias training and hiring. Over the course of 10 months, the Board conducted a series of conversations, public safety sessions and kitchen cabinet meetings attended by more than 700 community members. Southers said the committee emphasized the four thematic pillars outlined in the CAB report — accountability, alternatives to armed response, community care and transparency — in interviews with potential candidates.
“We are really looking for somebody who can embrace the key reforms that we had, most importantly, reenvisioning public safety,” Southers said.