POLICE CHIEF FINALIST: Bill Yeagley
Bill Yeagley fell in love with law enforcement when he attended Central Michigan University in the 1970s.
He said he began working as a student service officer, working with CMU Police on a regular basis. Now, he's applying to be in charge of that agency.
"My love for law enforcement started here," he said. "I want to be a part of that."
Yeagley, the director of public safety for the Mount Pleasant Police Department, spoke to a crowd of about 30 people Thursday in the Bovee University Center's Fireside Room. The discussion was part of Yeagley's day interviewing for the position of CMU police chief.
Yeagley said working at a college is much different than policing in a city scene.
"There's a more community of people that attend or work at CMU. It affects more," he said. "That certainly is not a priority for other non-university police."
Yeagley has spent his entire policing career in the mid-Michigan area. He has worked in Mount Pleasant from 1978-79, and since 1981. He spent two years as deputy sheriff in Clare County from 1980-81. He has been Mount Pleasant's director of public safety since 1999.
While Yeagley has been familiar with CMU in past years, he said he is not clear on all the specifics of working with college students. One example, he said, was the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA, which deals with student's academic privacy, is something Yeagley said he would ask for assistance for.
"I'm no expert," he said. "I'm familiar with it."
Several university members asked Yeagley about his views on diversity. Assistant Director of Minority Student Services Sean Novak asked Yeagley about how he would handle another situation like the nooses that were discovered in the IET Building in 2007.
Yeagley said his experience with working with the Mount Pleasant Area Diversity Group has helped him, and said situations such as that need to be handled with extreme care.
"It raises the level of discomfort in the community," he said. "As a police chief, it's part of my job to answer those questions."
Student Government Association President Jason Nichol, who is also on the police chief search committee, said the finalists the committee selected all share one common vision.
"They're all very committed to the community policing model," the Mount Pleasant junior said.
The community policing model, Yeagley said, is understanding the community in which an officer is serving. He said he understands the difference and would work to adapt his current style.
"An important part is to be clear in the beginning," he said. "Policing is different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction."
Check cm-life.com tomorrow for a story on the next police chief finalist.
