Klaus Solko co-executive editor & Jessica Tezoquipa, news editor

This week we had the pleasure of conducting an interview with the Director of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), Anthony Pangal. DPS is the organization on campus responsible for our safety and security. 

The first thing asked of Pangal was what he would like our readers to know about him, his role and DPS as a whole. He expressed that he has a strong commitment to our student body, noting that he is “passionate about protecting students, faculty and staff, by ensuring students are aware of resources available. [When] working together, we can all foster a safer climate on and near campus. I consider maintaining the safety of all those who live, work at, and visit our campus to be our most important jobs. This is a responsibility we take seriously,” Pangal attested. 

To follow up the answer, we asked what his future plans for DPS are. Pangal expressed that his top goal for the department is to increase the trust and communication our campus has in DPS. Last year there was one town hall meeting with DPS, and Pangal mentioned that he would like to see more of those. He also said that they will be opening lines of communication further by meeting with student groups, attending student forums and student government meetings. He says the purpose of this is “to help understand student concerns, needs and experiences with public safety and safety in general on campus, [and to] ensure developed strategies [that] reflect the diverse perspectives of the Augsburg Community.”

Keeping on the topic of students and DPS, the next question was how DPS sees student involvement with them. Pangal shared that there are currently 22 student dispatchers, which are the people who work the DPS desk and answer the phone calls. There is also one student public safety officer. He went on to share that DPS is rolling out a new Community Service Officer pilot program. This program will employ two students as Community Service Officers. The role will be taking on some of the routine roles of current DPS officers like providing safe walk escorts, doing interior and exterior patrols of the campus along with event coverage. This would also include writing facilities and incident reports about things seen. 

Following the topic of student involvement and employment there was a question posed about DPS being understaffed and how some of the roles DPS used to handle such as room unlocks were being shifted onto Community Advisors. Pangal shared some of the behind the scenes of employment with DPS this year. He shared that DPS has been understaffed since the school year started and that there was a lot of employee turnover since he stepped into the role, “I hold staff accountable for their actions, and resetting the culture of the department was necessary. Several staff didn’t like that they were being held accountable and left employment and several were formally separated.” Pangal also shared that as of Nov. 24 two more people have been hired on, so DPS is back to being fully staffed at seven full-time public safety officers and two lead public safety officers which are assigned to evening and overnight shifts. His comment on DPS’s partnership with Residence Life was saying that they are currently looking at the partnership and determining the best practice of what each organization is in charge of. 

We then asked about reported concerns about DPS officers not doing full rounds of the dorms and what Pangal was planning to do to ensure officers are completing their duties. Pangal shared that it is a goal to have officers do rounds of the dorm common areas every night. However there are nights when even with two officers on duty there is such a high volume of calls that it can get difficult for officers to consistently complete this expectation. He also shared that he has advocated for additional officers per shift to try and combat this problem and ensure more consistent rounds of the dorms along with generally “increasing safety for […] officers, students, staff and faculty.”

We then moved on to ask how Pangal responds to students who are worried about police/security presence on campus. Pangal once again brought up the team being expected to be visible and engage in the campus community. He also said that “the Department of Public Safety staff are not police and are trained to understand their role within an urban university campus. […] The team, along with myself, shall collaborate with counseling services and student affairs to provide support for students and other college departments. It’s important that public safety officers are trained in crisis intervention, cultural sensitivity, and Mental Health First Aid,” highlighting and addressing many concerns that students generally have with security presence. Pangal also shared about DPS’s connection with the Minneapolis Police Department, saying “We maintain a relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, as they often can assist our team with further investigating an incident and bringing formal charges to individuals or groups that are responsible for causing crime on our campus.”