In their last meeting before Thanksgiving break, Georgia State’s Student Government (SGA) welcomed a visit from the chief of police Joseph Spillane who came out to offer a list of updates from GSUPD.
“It’s not a requirement, [but] we choose to be accredited to make sure we are following the industry best practices and really coming along as a police department in the 21st century which is different than it was in the 20th century so we are trying to be as advanced as we can,” he told senators.
The Georgia State police department has 184 sworn full-time police officers, with jurisdiction up to 500 yards from any building the university owns, leases or operates. The Georgia State departments cover nearly all of Downtown.
One of Spillane’s top priorities is going green. He said he wants his officers to be more available on campus and to interact with students and faculty and become more visible.
“I’m committed to going as green as possible, so when I got here, I parked half of the police cars on what I notice was police cars driving around with the windows rolled up with the heat on and the air condition on not interacting with you guys or students or faculty or staff. I parked half the cars, and I got people [officers] out there now on segways, bicycles, golf carts, and foot,” Spillane said.
Senators also are looking to increase ways of transportation throughout campus around the clock.
Sen. Luis Aleman’s initiative is looking to extend the hours for the Turner Field bus route, after Georgia State has extended Turner Field’s night hours from 10:30 P.M. to midnight, Monday through Friday.
New shuttles will also become available to on-campus students for grocery shopping.
Sen. Alondra Cruz-Hernandez informed that next year the association’s student service money will be spent on grocery shuttles in the spring semester. After meeting with the RHA president, Cruz-Hernandez confirmed the shuttles will be available to all resident and commuter students.
The goal is, if head of freshman liaisons Sai Maddali has it his way, to address all student concerns as effectively as possible. Maddali would like to create a social trend where SGA can create a hashtag for Georgia State students and they can in turn tweet problems they are facing at Georgia State. That way, senators can stay up to date with student concerns and create more initiatives to tackle those specific issues.
