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HE A LTH • Fall 2022 13 according to the college. One of those students was Isaac Blanford, a graduate enrolled in the college's master of science in counterterrorism through the 4+1 program, which allows students to get their bachelors and masters within five years. After graduating in May, he moved back to his native Fayetteville, N.Y., where he works part time and is in the process of applying to join the New York State Police. Murray is helping him navigate the interview process. At Nichols, Blanford said, he originally wanted to study law. But he found himself drawn to police work, and counterterrorism specifically. "It's amazing to think about how people rad- icalize themselves based on their surroundings and groups," Blanford said. "Terrorists need help to do what they do. It's usually with a group of like-minded radicals. The fact that there's that much evil out there makes me want to do something to try to change it." In his studies at Nichols and through the training, Blanford said he has seen how impor- tant leadership and culture are to a law enforcement organization. A broken system at the Minneapolis Police Department led to the use of excessive force in the murder of George Floyd, he said, and response failures caused devastating consequences in the school shoot- ing at Uvalde, Texas. But now, as he joins law enforcement himself, Blanford said he can study those situations and use what he's learned to apply to his own future career. "It was a great four years at Nichols, and it ended with great experience with Eric Murray," he said. "It was a great experience, and I'm really excited to get into my career." "The more police officers that can hear about challenges and solutions to those challenges, the better police officers we're going to be," Tom Stewart, assistant professor of leadership and director of recruitment for Nichols' master of sci- ence in counterterrorism program, said. Public safety The command academy was made possible through a partnership between Nichols and Team Training Associates of Connecticut, which pro- vides leadership training to law enforcement agen- cies throughout the U.S., company President Eric Murray said. Murray, who has 35 years of experience in pub- lic safety, is a military veteran and retired from the Connecticut State Police. He was involved with the Sandy Hook case, which he said inspired him to pursue his doctorate at the University of Hartford. It was there he researched psychological capital as a way to help organizations and officers better manage resiliency and mental health when dealing with traumatic-related stress. The public safety academy curriculum, he said, centers around leadership and motivation theories, teamwork, and team building. Students did the DiSC (dominance, influence, steadiness, and con- scientiousness) personality assessment, a test assigning people different personality types in order to figure out how they should be managed. Scott Carola, a lieutenant and administrative assistant to the chief at the New Bedford Police Department, said he found the DiSC assessment to be useful as a way to figure out how to manage people. He never received any training on how to lead people when he first became a sergeant in 2006. "When I was first promoted, I walked into the chief 's office, the secretary handed me a box, inside the box were secondhand badges, sergeant badges that had been used. They asked me to pick out the two best, which I did, then the chief shook my hand, said, 'Congratulations,' and then I was a supervisor. I suspect there were a lot of police officers that had the same thing happen to them," he said. "But now they're starting to know the importance of having supervisors trained." Jewiss' lecture, which was about three-and-a-half hours long, focused on his main takeaways from Sandy Hook. The school system has to be prepared, by mak- ing sure things like door locks are checked and maintained on a regular basis. Teachers, students, and staff have to be trained on how to call 911 and what information to give when they reach a dispatcher. It can come down to very small things, Jewiss said, like figuring out which phone you're going to use to call 911 or where you're going to hide. "People always come in with technology and apps and bullet-resistant glass, which is great with physical security, but it's also very expensive a lot of times," Jewiss said. "So the concepts that we talk about – information is needed, and how to call it in – it's just human behavior that you're talking about, so it's fairly inexpensive. It's training your personnel, and it's a skill they have for life." Another important part of the training is mind- fulness, Murray said. Students were taught self- regulation techniques like meditation and focus and attention practices. By self-regulating, he said, officers can be intentional in how they respond to interactions with the public and with co-workers rather than reactive. Implicit bias training, includ- ing racial bias, is an important component of this as well, he said. "By understanding implicit bias- es, we can start to self-regulate biases, and that self awareness is a cornerstone of effectiveness," he said. "We teach them meditative practices, focus and attention prac- tices, to transition them from one incident to another – work to home, home to work, or any transi- tion they might encounter during the day." These meditative practices are important to help minimize the long-term after-effects of tragic events, he said. After all, while families of victims certainly expe- rience the most trauma following an incident, a huge tragedy can really impact an entire community, including the law enforcement officials who are involved. "After the dust settles, it's important to focus on things you might be aware of that are not readily apparent, certainly for families who are always at the forefront of attention and focus – and rightful- ly so – but also for first responders who are inti- mately involved in the investigation," Murray said. Nichols curriculum The six Nichols students who participated in the academy were to roll it into course credit, Law enforcement workforce statistics 2021 median pay: $66,020 per year Number of jobs, 2020: 795,000 Job outlook, 2020-2030: 7% growth Employment change, 2020-2030: 51,700 more jobs Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Eric Murray, who was involved in the response to the Sandy Hook school shooting while he was with the Connecticut State Police, was among the main speakers at the Public Safety Command Academy. H

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