When Rocco DelMonaco assumed the recently vacated post of vice president for university safety this summer, he felt that much of his hardest work had already been accomplished.

But DelMonaco – though he says that Georgetown is already well on its way toward improving campus safety – still has lofty goals. Having worked as an independent consultant before arriving on the Hilltop in late June, DelMonaco said that he hopes to use his experience to improve safety administration on campus.

“If I can do this place like we used to do the White House, we’d have a very nice perimeter, very limited access coming in and out . but that’s not what a university is,” he said. “How do we balance what we want the university to be and our security risks?”

He said he has already taken steps toward addressing one of his major goals – to reduce the crime rate on and around campus – by coordinating the university’s three transport systems. Putting the SafeRides shuttle, the Shuttle and the Alpha Phi Omega Van under the control of one transportation coordinator, who was just hired and is now being trained, DelMonaco said, makes it more convenient for students to utilize university transportation.

“We’re experimenting with that this semester to see if that takes care of some of the customer service issues [and] wait issues and relieves the [Department of Public Safety] communication officers on duty on the busiest nights of the week,” he said

The coordination of the three transport systems came with the help of the Student Safety Advisory Board, which was created by former Vice President for University Safety David Morrell as a way to receive input from the student body.

SSAB members, who generally had a strong working relationship with Morrell, said that they have been pleased with how DelMonaco has sought student input so far.

“A number of us have been working with him over the summer and helping him get acclimated to the university, and on the same token, he’s been very receptive to our ideas,” said Tyler Spalding (SFS ’08), an SSAB member.

When DPS negotiated a new contract with the university in March, its union demanded higher wages for the officers in order to alleviate the high attrition rate. Since then, further negotiations have resulted in agreements for better training and equipping the officers with mace, batons and protective vests.

DelMonaco said he would also like to “move further along the path of the professionalization of DPS.” He also suggested having DPS officers patrol the campus on bicycles, which would assist officers in climbing Georgetown’s steep hills.

DPS Director Darryl Harrison said that DelMonaco “matches our department and where we want to take it – we want our department to be community oriented, student oriented, and we want to be the most professional department, not just in the Washington area, but recognized nationally.”

DelMonaco said he also hopes to build out his office by hiring “subject matter experts,” who would be in charge of handling specific types of incidents, and improving university safety’s relationship with MPD.

Over the summer, DelMonaco participated in an emergency-response drill on campus, organized by safety department Director of Operations Peter Luger, during which the Metropolitan Police Department and DPS practiced their emergency protocol. He said that through this, he sought ways to lower response time and to set up command posts to coordinate the two police department’s actions during future incidents.

DelMonaco said he hopes to continue in Morrell’s footsteps by interacting with the campus. Having already spent several nights patrolling the campus and attending New Student Orientation events, he said that he wanted to both familiarize himself with the university and make himself visible. “I want to let students know that my tenure on campus is going to be hands-on that way,” he said. He will also be present for a “meet-and-greet” with students on Tuesday during SSAB-organized Student Safety Week.

A number of decisions meant to enhance university safety were made immediately before DelMonaco began working at Georgetown, including recent changes to the alcohol policy. Despite an outburst of student criticism to the new policies in the past week, DelMonaco said that he approves of many of these as beneficial to security on campus.

The alcohol policy changes were meant to address, in part, several brawls and assaults that took place on campus last year, including a fight outside Reiss Science Building that sent three DPS officers and one student to the hospital.

“Those policy decisions were made before I got here,” DelMonaco said. “When they asked my opinion on it, [I thought] it was certainly reasonable.”

Additionally, the university has developed new ways to alert students and faculty in the case of an emergency on campus, including sending text messages, e-mails and telephone messages. DelMonaco said that negotiations for this had been completed before he came into his office, but that he was pleased that since Sept. 11, 2001, the university seems to have taken several appropriate protective measures.

“That mindset was already here. They . wanted to enhance security and safety here on campus, but they had already taken several demonstrable steps through the years,” he said. “I didn’t have to come here and sell the Brooklyn Bridge, if you will.”

DelMonaco said that right now, he is still getting a feel for Georgetown. “I’m just still trying to learn the place,” he said. “The university is a complex place in and of itself.”