Ouachita began a contract with a new company to serve as campus safety on June 1 this summer, making the switch from Securitas to Whelan Security.
Junior philosophy major Dave Fair was on campus over the summer working for the IT department when the change was made.
“It seemed to happen overnight, really,” he said. “All of a sudden there was a new safety truck driving around.”
Fair said that his past run-ins with the previous safety were relatively uneventful, despite the seemingly bold nature of some of the stunts they caught him pulling.
“They were pretty relaxed,” he said. “I got caught climbing roofs a couple of times with people, and they let us go. I also got caught with fireworks a couple of times and they still let us go. So maybe this safety will be more strict.”
According to Brett Powell, Vice President of Administrative Services, the Ouachita administration had been thinking about making the change for quite some time.
“Really we were just looking for the best possible service for students,” he said. “Overtime it seemed we weren’t quite getting the service we were expecting and that we thought students really deserved.”
Powell said the Ouachita administration had explored other options and made the decision to switch early last spring. As far as what triggered the administration to begin looking for other options, Powell said there was not a specific event but that they had monitored the interaction between students and campus safety and over time they came to their present conclusion.
However, Powell mentioned that the long term enmity between students and campus safety played a large role and was a major factor in the decision to change.
“One of the final factors that made us get pretty serious about making the change was the student satisfaction survey in the fall semester,” he said. “And those results were really poor for the students’ opinion of the work that safety was doing.”
The survey contained a lot of negative comments about safety’s performance, Powell said. After taking this into account, Ouachita administration deliberated making the change for about 12 months. After talking with Whelan security, Powell said they were really impressed with their philosophy.
“They understand that it’s client first— which is what we want— that it’s students first,” he said. “A high priority for them was that they put students’ needs and student safety above all else and it matched up with what we were looking for.”
“They also put a big emphasis on hiring the right people and training those people to be successful,” Powell continued. “So we just saw the right things in the company.”
With the change in safety also came a lot of changes in its staff, although Ouachita recommended that Whelan Security retain Daryl Baumgardner as head of safety. Whelan took heed of this advice and Baumgardner remains on staff.
According to Powell, safety will undergo an annual evaluation before the yearly contract is renewed. He is confident that Whelan Security will perform satisfactorily.
“I’m very positive about it,” he said. “I’ve seen some very good changes so far. I think they’re going to be successful, but only time will tell.
