With deadline looming, group nears final report By mara gordon February 1, 2005
Under intense pressure from University President Amy Gutmann's February deadline, the Ad Hoc Committee on Safety in a Diverse Environment met for a third time yesterday to discuss recommendations for the Department of Public Safety.
Committee Chairman Peter Conn, the Interim Provost, said that the group was moving forward with a report for DPS and other campus organizations that deal with racial profiling and police misconduct.
"Some [recommendations] will be programmatic; some will have to do with strategies of communication," Conn said.
The committee, formed last December after the Penn Police's mistaken apprehension of College sophomore Warith Deen Madyun on Nov. 21, is charged with improving the relationship between the DPS and minority community members.
Committee member Karlene Burrell-McRae -- the director of Makuu, the black cultural center on campus -- said she thought that measuring the extent of police misconduct on campus should be one of the committee's priorities.
"We need to come up with a system of being able to really collect important data about these types of instances that are occurring on campus," Burrell-McRae said.
She added that she hoped to see an educational campaign that would allow community members to file complaints against the Penn Police.
Conn said the committee would determine its proposals by reviewing the minutes of its previous meetings.
"We worked through every single one of [the recommendations made during the previous meetings], giving everybody time to talk about the strengths and weaknesses," Conn said.
Conn was reluctant to give any more specifics about the report, however.
"To go into the details would be a little premature," he said.
Gutmann said in mid-January that she wanted the committee to issue its report within a month.
Conn said he expected to meet Gutmann's deadline.
"I myself am known to be an impatient person," Conn said. "I respect impatience on important matters."
Committee member Sean Vereen, associate director of the Greenfield Intercultural Center, said that the committee's work is important because incidents of police misconduct occur with some regularity.
"It seems like there's an incident like this every so often that continues bringing us back to the table," Vereen said, but "if they want recommendations that are going to be of significance, then they're not going to be made in a couple of weeks' time."
Vereen added that he hoped the committee's effects would be long-term.
"I am interested in a discussion that doesn't hit the typical talking points," he said. "I'm hoping for a sustained dialogue and action around these issues beyond when recommendations come out and the committee disappears."
Though the dialogue began following the Madyun incident, a police investigation found that the officers involved acted within department policies.
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