UAF POLICE OPEN SATELLITE OFFICE ON CAMPUS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 13, 1997

Fairbanks, Alaska - Community policing will take a step forward at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Jan. 16 when UAF Police Officer Tonya Barnes opens shop in the Moore, Bartlett and Skarland residence hall complex, a three-building unit housing about 700 students on the UAF campus.

Money to support the satellite office comes from a $150,000 U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant which UAF received last year.

Community policing taps into an old idea - having officers walk a neighborhood beat to act as problem solvers and visible deterrents to crime.

UAF is the main residential campus for the UA system with about 1,700 of its approximately 7,000 Fairbanks students living on-campus. The university is often compared to a small city because it operates a post office, fire department, food services, a small grocery store and a bookstore which sells sundry items. Residence halls are the neighborhoods of the campus community.

"The goal is not to increase the number of arrests or reports we write. Our focus is on working with students as partners to prevent a crisis before it happens. We'll do that by making ourselves available where students live and hopefully showing them we have an open door policy for discussing things that are concerning them," said UAF Police Sgt. Terry Vrabec.

Officer Barnes will be assisting and expanding programs dealing with neighborhood watch in the residence halls and other programs that benefit the campus community, said Vrabec.

Although her office is in the M-B-S complex, Officer Barnes will be working with all residence halls and on-campus residents to promote proactive problem solving and police community partnerships.

UAF's police headquarters is co-located in a building near the center of the campus which houses the UAF fire department and university health center. The police department includes 12 full-time officers.

Since 1990, when UAF's public safety office became a legislated police department, a variety of measures have been implemented to upgrade service and enhance safety to the campus community.

Some of the measures include strengthening educational and judicial proceedings for first-time alcohol offenses, giving students the option of living on an alcohol-free floor in residence halls, expanding shuttle bus service to Hutchison Career Center and the Tanana Valley Campus Downtown Center, enhancing residence hall safety, improving campus lighting, putting phones in every room of residence halls and beefing up the availability of emergency phones campuswide.

Note to Editors:
Officer Barnes and Residence Life Associate Director Tim Stickel will be available to provide tours of the new office at 11 a.m., Thursday, Jan. 16, Hess Rec Center, M-B-S Complex. Media are invited to attend.

Sources available for additional information:

UAF Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services Michael Rice, (907) 474-7340

UAF Police Sgt. Terry Vrabec, (907) 474-7721

UAF Police Officer Tonya Barnes, (907) 474-7721

UAF Acting Residence Life Director Eric Jozwiak, (907) 474-7247

UAF Criminal Justice Instructor Caralyn Holmes, (907) 474-7609>

News release contact: Public Information Officer Debra Damron, (907) 474-7122

DPD/1-13-97/97-044