Nov. 1, 2019

Wilfrid Laurier University’s Special Constable Service (SCS) is scheduled for an initial on-site assessment at the Waterloo campus by an accreditation team from the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) Nov. 9 through Nov. 12, 2019.

The purpose of the on-site assessment at Laurier’s Waterloo campus is to examine SCS and their compliance with IACLEA’s more than 200 professional standards of campus law enforcement. The IACLEA accreditation program requires campus security and law enforcement agencies to comply with state-of-the-art standards in areas including policy and procedures, organizational management, law enforcement operations and support services.

Pursuing IACLEA accreditation is a voluntary process. Laurier’s Special Constable Service at the Brantford and Waterloo campus already comply with police adequacy standards in Ontario and regulations outlined by Brantford Police Service and Waterloo Regional Police Service. Laurier’s Special Constable Service at the Brantford campus is viewed as a separate policing unit under IACLEA and is not part of the accreditation process at this time.

The assessment team includes Margaret (Peg) Gant, IACLEA team lead and accreditation manager and assistant director at the University of North Texas Police Department, and Lt. Tamara McCollough, accreditation manager and Clery compliance for the Indiana State University Police Department.

As part of the on-site assessment, Laurier faculty, staff and students at the Waterloo campus are invited to offer comments by calling the accreditation assessment team at 519.884.0710 x2404 on Monday, Nov. 11 between 1 and 3 p.m. Comments must address the ability of SCS at Laurier’s Waterloo campus to comply with the standards developed by IACLEA.

The accreditation standards are available online.

Calls are not recorded and will be answered by the assessment team only. The length of the phone calls will be dependent on the extent of the feedback callers provide. Participation is voluntary. The information is kept strictly confidential and comments will not be attributed to anyone personally. An aggregate of all responses will be used to generate a final report, which will be shared with the IACLEA commissioners and Tammy Lee, director: Laurier’s Special Constable Service. The Office of Research Services has approved this project under file 2019-48 as per University Policy 8.2.

If Laurier’s application is successful, the Special Constable Service will be the only sworn campus police unit in Canada to hold current IACLEA accreditation.

If you have any questions about the comment process or SCS pursuit of IACLEA accreditation, please contact Staff Sergeant Ryan Eldred at 519.884.0710 x4243 or email dispatch@wlu.ca.