Findings from a report early last summer assessing Duke University Police Department officer retention rates have prompted the department to address and attempt to alleviate the issues raised.
In February 2007, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask hired Sibson Consulting, an international human resources firm, to analyze reasons for turnover and attrition within DUPD. The Chronicle reported last April that DUPD had lost nearly 50 percent of its force between 2006 and 2008.
Since then, the department has made changes to its recruitment process and is re-evaluating internal practices, including officer compensation, Vice President for Campus Services Kemel Dawkins said.
The report was based on post-exit interviews with more than 35 former officers, said Aaron Graves, associate vice president for campus safety and security. Dawkins said the results were presented orally to top officials and no written report exists.
Findings showed that officers chose to leave for reasons including concerns about limited opportunities for advancement and mismatched expectations between officers and DUPD, Dawkins and Graves said. Graves noted that he was "not at liberty" to disclose details of the report because the information is to be used internally and pertain to personnel issues.
Trask could not be reached for comment this week, but told The Chronicle last April that leadership and morale were also issues of concern.
But Graves, who took his administrative post with DUPD in January 2006 and oversees the department, asserted that leadership is not the issue. Some officers told The Chronicle last April that they were unhappy, specifically, with Graves' management style.
"You can't just focus on, 'Oh, people don't like the management so they're leaving'-that's the shallow aspect of it, not the totality of it," he said. "It's more than one single factor, people won't leave their jobs because they're mad at their bosses."
During an interview with The Chronicle Feb. 24, Dawkins noted that DUPD is "concerned" about its officers' wages compared to their Triangle-area counterparts. In an interview Thursday, he said the department has partnered with Duke Human Resources to assess DUPD worker compensation, but added that Duke employees are generally appropriately paid. The study's findings will be presented in the coming weeks.
"We know that at Duke University, as far as paying officers to do police work, we're not at the top of the market," Graves said. "But you could say the same thing with medical staff, you could say the same thing with faculty members, it's not different. We don't attract people for what we pay them."
Further, many officer candidates are initially concerned with landing a job more than finding the right fit, contributing to a larger rate of departure as the officers later find positions they are more interested in, Graves said.
"We offer a unique set of policing skills.... We are limited as to how you can utilize your police skills in this environment," he said. "We don't keep people here that do not want to be here for reason or another. It's a right-to-work state and a right-to-quit state."
Graves added that DUPD may not be as appealing as municipal police departments because it also does not contain special weapons, motorcycle or helicopter and aviation units.
He said the high percentage of officers leaving since 2006 is not abnormal, adding that officer attrition is a longstanding problem and can be attributed to a number of factors.
Dawkins said officers may also have been unprepared for a more subjective work environment in handling situations on an academic campus.
"We have high expectations for our officers," he said. "My presumption is that the officers [who left DUPD] were not comfortable with our expectation for them to use judgement. Jobs between university police departments and municipal police departments are in many ways similar, but distinct differences exist in dealing with an academic population."
In regards to officer morale, Dawkins said DUPD has made "significant strides" toward improving officer culture. Although officers may be reluctant to voice their grievances for fear of hierarchical ramifications, Graves said first-line supervision between officers and their sergeants and lieutenants is key to boosting morale as well as addressing concerns. He noted that he and other department leaders have an open-door policy and that DUPD also has an anonymous suggestions program.
"What has happened to anyone that has [voiced grievances to their superiors]? Who has been terminated, who has been demoted? Where does that fear come from?" Graves said. "I don't know of any case where anyone has been terminated, ostracized, for doing that. There are systems within the University to protect the rights of employees, there is a mechanism to address those issues without going to The Chronicle."
Still, during the year-long search for a new police chief, student and faculty representatives sat on the search committee, but DUPD officers were not consulted, Graves confirmed. John Dailey, assistant police chief at North Carolina State University, was appointed chief and will begin his term April 1.
But Graves said there is no correlation between officer morale or overall work environment and officers' lack of participation in the search, adding that suggesting such a connection is "inappropriate."
"There is no connection between officer dissatisfaction and who gets to be their administrator," he said. "If you are hiring an administrator in a company, you wouldn't have someone from the production line determining who's he or she's boss. You try to get the community's input, but it's the hiring manager's decision."
Although Dailey said he is not familiar with DUPD's retention woes, he noted that he will work individually with officers to address internal issues once he takes his newly appointed position as Duke's chief of police next month.
"I've only been involved through the search committee, but I plan on getting a thorough background of what's been going on," he said. "Not being an employee, it's hard for me to comment on the issue, but it's absolutely an area of interest. It's something important to the University and something important to the department, so it's going to be of high priority."
DUPD has worked to be more selective in offering employment to ensure potential officers are good matches for Duke and providing more opportunities for advancement within the department, Dawkins said.
He noted, however, that the Triangle area overall is experiencing a shortage of officers, forcing police departments to cross-recruit and take from each other. To avoid problems with this approach, Dawkins said DUPD has started to hire from out of state and encourage more officers to join police academies, adding that its recent efforts have been "successful."
"The numbers speak for themselves," Graves said, but was unable to immediately provide the data for recruitment and retention rates in recent years.
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