By: Paige Scofield 
Campus Life Editor

Western’s Campus Public Safety Officers have always gone above and beyond when helping those who are in need. Whether that’s finding a stolen bike or escorting students home, they treat each task as equally important. Despite this, how could they strive to be better? How could they extend a hand of help to everyone and anyone who contacts them? Campus Public Safety Officers want to communicate with every student and faculty member to the best of their ability.
As some may know, Western is well known for its American Sign Language program and is home to a community of deaf and partially deaf individuals. In the fall of 2015, Campus Public Safety Director Rebecca Chiles was contacted by College of Education faculty member, Brent Redpath, to do a presentation on Western’s Campus Public Safety for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Faculty.

“In that gathering, we began to discuss ways that deaf and partially deaf faculty, staff, students and Campus Public Safety could better communicate. An idea was brought to me by College of Education faculty, Kara Gouranis, that she had a couple of students who were willing to teach us at Public Safety some basic American Sign Language. Two students, Petra Schenfeld and Cassie Owens, began meeting with us in late fall 2015. They were patient and understanding with us and we have made some progress,” said Chiles.

The officers involved in this training include: occupational environmental safety officer Allen Risen with 27 years on the force, officer Scott Tennant with five years, officer Trever Jackson with nine years, administrative office assistant Angela Barry with two years and Director Rebecca Chiles also with two years of experience.

“Both officer Tennant and officer Jackson have used American Sign Language with students on a couple of different occasions since we began taking the classes,” Chiles added.
Campus Public Safety also announced on Western’s website, wou.edu, that they have created a deaf and partially deaf text line.

The Western website instructions states,“The user simply sends a text message to the specified number and the text will be answered by our Campus Public Safety staff. We encourage deaf and partially deaf faculty, staff and students to use this number for all communication with Campus Public Safety, such as, emergencies of any kind, door unlocks, report a crime or suspicious activities, etc. If you are part of the Deaf/Hard of hearing community and would like the phone number for this service, please feel free to contact the Office of Disability Services at ods@wou.edu or Public Safety at safety@wou.edu and we will do our best to answer any questions you may have.”

Above all, Campus Public Safety is doing their best to make sure every student and faculty member at Western feels safe and heard.

Contact the author at journalcampuslife@mail.wou.edu