By Matt Kaminsky, Currier Times Staff///

Over Winter Break, Curry College welcomed a new Public Safety director to the community, Patrick Foley.

Chief Foley has a long past in public safety. Prior to joining Curry, Foley was at Berklee College of Music.

“I’ve been in law enforcement for 14 years,” said Foley. “I was a deputy chief of police [at Berklee]. I actually started at Berklee as a police officer when they first created their police department, so I was one of the first three police officers that they had hired and I worked my way up to the Deputy chief when I left.”

The new director comes after Paul King, the former director, suddenly stepped down and the college ended up hiring Windwalker Security, a third party company, to handle some of the security around campus.

“We are still working with Windwalker at this time under a tight contract,” said Foley. “Our hope is to eventually have a fully staffed Public Safety department.”

Over the last few years, Curry has had incidents where unauthorized people have gained access to campus, including entering Residence Halls without authorization, and a string of hate crimes a little further back. Part of the challenge, Foley said, was the size of the campus, and the ebb and flow of a typical college academic schedule.

“I think there’s no secret that because of the layout of the campus and and where it falls in a community of Milton that it’s very apparent when students are here, when they’re not here, when there’s breaks, when there’s recesses, and unfortunately, there are some individuals who take advantage of those opportunities,” said Foley.

Chief Foley said he’s in the learning stage of his time at Curry, and taking down notes on how to proceed.

“I’ve tried to start it just first by kind of taking inventory of what’s already in place,” said Foley. “What’s in place as far as cameras, other physical security gates. And I am a big proponent and advocate of using and leveraging technology.”

Some other changes to security that Chief Foley expects people to see on campus include:

• Replacing gates
• Adding more cameras
• Working with Milton Police to share cameras
• Adding motion sensor lights
• Hiring new Public Safety unarmed police officers
  

One thing that the people should know is that Chief Foley wants the community to be involved.

“I’m really trying to bring a lot of innovative technology and really revamp the student experience through the lens of Public Safety,” said Foley. “One of the biggest pieces is collaboration. I’m hopefully meeting with SGA in the coming month. One of the things I’d really like to do is form a Public Safety sub-committee.

He said students are the key to how Public Safety will proceed in the future.

“I want student involvement because at the end of the day, your experiences as a student and your involvement in Public Safety, you should have a direct say in that,” said Foley. “We’re here to serve the students.”