MissionOur mission is to serve and protect the students, faculty, staff and visitors of Ferris State University. To further the academic pursuits of FSU in two ways: actually keeping people and property safe and in helping to create an environment where people feel completely safe.
Director's MessageThe FSU DPS Mission Statement has two primary elements that bear repeating, they are to keep people safe and keep people feeling safe. Consider how one without the other spells disappointment. People who feel safe, but are not, or people who are actually safe, but live in fear suffer unnecessarily. Our campus community has much to feel good about in this regard. The crime rate for our community has taken another turn for the better. A calendar year drop of 9% overall reflects 15% fewer crimes against persons and 5% fewer property related crimes. Our pedestrian safety effort is panning out quite nicely as well. There have been no serious bike or pedestrian accidents reported this past year on campus or in the city jurisdiction to the north or county jurisdiction to the south. We are wise to continue our effort since bike and pedestrian accidents still do occur, just thankfully last year no serious injuries resulted. So, this rounds out our police services element to public safety. As far as parking resource management there is an impressive story to tell. The most significant drop in parking violations being issued has occurred just this past year. A comprehensive and intense enforcement and education process began three years ago and the results are quite remarkable. Compliance is way up. Permit purchased per capita has climbed while violations issued this year are less than 50% of what they were three years ago. Better inventory management and fewer opportunities to find loopholes have resulted in "voluntary compliance" by the vast majority of people using the system. The third function of public safety (with police services and parking resource management) is emergency preparedness. Development of a state of the art EOC (emergency operations center) at FSU DPS is near completion. This Center allows quick and effective response by the top team of leaders in all areas of our academic and residential world. It speaks directly to the business continuity issues of educating people and caring for them in their work and living environment on campus. Personal Service to the campus community took a leap forward in the development of the police cadet program. Police cadets are paid, uniformed, civilian police trainees who are preparing to begin their careers as sworn, licensed police officers in the state. We have an impressive population of candidates who are being educated formally and technically through our criminal justice program and police academy. Police cadets are selected for their current service capabilities and allow for us to recruit from their ranks to fill our full-time positions as they come available. Too often in the past our very best went on to other agencies of opportunity because the timing to bring them onboard here was off. There are currently two police cadets on the department. MJ Bledsoe, Director of Public Safety
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