The service was judged the best in the “Innovation in Information Technology, small agency” category. Announcing the award, the association said, “The Wilfrid Laurier University Special Constable Service is among a very distinguished group of winners.”

“I think it’s a great honour for the university,” says Rod Curran, services director. “It shows their commitment to making our campuses safe, and we’ve come a long way in five years.”

Since 2005, the university — which includes campuses at Kitchener, Waterloo and Brantford — has undertaken an overhaul of its security system and introduced a wide range of new technologies — from CCTV and a D-3 records management system to emergency poles and a Motorola radio system.

In that time, the number of cameras on the university’s campuses has increased from 10 to almost 325. The stationary and rotating cameras, made by Pelco, are all digital and record up to five to six weeks. “So we can go back in there if there is an incident and investigate quite quickly and make a DVD for the police or us,” Curran says.

In the last five years the department has spent $840,000 on improvements to outside security — including the new cameras, lighting, alarm systems and 26 blue light emergency poles — cost about $500,000.

A new communications centre located in Waterloo houses the dispatch centre, and it’s from there that the CCTV cameras on the three campuses are monitored. The most expensive item was a server room, which contains 10 Sunblade servers that, Curran says, “now run the dispatch centre.” The centre, equipped with more than 42 monitors, has a new panel ($65,000) that ensures a backup power supply and a new communications console ($20,000).

A new Motorola radio system in the communications centre means officers can talk to each other, no matter which campus they are on. And because the portable radios have GPS, dispatchers can at any time locate every officer and car; in fact, by looking at a large map in the centre, they can follow them around the campus.   

“It’s a good way to use technology,” Curran says. “Years ago we had an officer fall on an icy step, and we didn’t know where he was. So now with the GPS, we can tell exactly where they are.”

Curran, who was an officer with Guelph, Ont. police for 31 years, was hired in 2005; administrators had just conducted a review of security and wanted to put in place a community-policing model. Extra staff was not an option, so he and his fellow constables planned to rely on a combination of technology and physical patrol to fulfill the school’s security needs.

“So I had to sell senior administration on new technology, which they bought into,” says Curran, who had a background in community policing.

“It was right after Dawson College and other incidents like Virginia Tech, so we really wanted to make sure we were moving forward in relation to security.”

In alternate years, the security service runs unannounced, live emergency plan tests, often in collaboration with the Waterloo Regional police. On a morning in November 2008, for example, their dispatchers noticed on CCTV a man with a sawed-off shotgun getting out of a van.

“They were able with the camera to focus in on the licence plate of the vehicle, record the licence plate and let the police know — description of the suspect, what residence he went into with the shotgun, that shots were fired,” Curran says.  

The department has also installed a new records management system, replacing one that was 30 years old. The new $65,000-system has a computer-aided dispatch component, Curran says, which has completely simplified dispatch procedure. When a call comes in, a template is immediately presented to the dispatcher, who simply fills in the blanks and dispatches an officer. Later, the officer simply calls up the report, completes it and, with the press of a button, sends it off to the Waterloo Regional Police.

Curran even introduced a new records management system to manage lost property. “We put almost $50,000 worth of products through our lost and found area at the university every year,” he says.

“We’re totally paperless now because of technology,” he adds. “It’s a DVR-run system, all digital. Technology is the way to go.”

Curran will receive the award May 24 at a ceremony in Atlanta.