An MATC security officer tickets a vehicle on campus.

Keeping MATC safe and secure

4 officers, 12 students help patrol the college

By: Ben Wurl-Koth, Clarion News Editor

Posted: 2/11/09

Protecting 44,000 students and 3,000 employees, it's a daunting task, and is taken on by Madison Are Technical College (MATC) security with great success.

MATC Madison's security has a staff of four full-time employees and twelve student officers. The four full-time employees have much experience in serving the community, one of them a part time police officer, one being a previous Dane County sheriff, one being a retired police officer of 15years, and the Chief of Security has 20 years of experience. The student officers are not restricted to students being enrolled in the criminal justice program however, as it turns out, they all are.

The student officers are trained to deal with many different types of situations that may occur on campus. Prior to putting on the uniform, student officers are trained in first aid, CPR, armed and unarmed tactics, report writing, and professional communication skills, including mediation techniques to prevent the escalation of an issue. Since the student officers have gone through the mandated training, "they are treaded like a professional and are expected to follow those expectations," says James Bottoni, Chief of Security.

The small staff, of students and full-time employees, is kept this way to make students more comfortable with security officers. Since they are here to serve and protect the students the department wants people on campus to feel comfortable talking with the members of the security team. The student officers are responsible for parking enforcement, facility checks, and are responsible to respond to any calls for service, emergency or not. Any time a weapon is involved they must call the Madison Police Department.

The MATC security department has a very good relationship with Madison Police, according to Bottoni. They have a connection with them through parking, as well as any criminal actions taking place on campus. According to the Chief of Security they have about a 5-minute response time to campus. MATC has not had a Police officer on campus for a year. After the Virginia Tech shooting there was a push to have a Police officer on every campus, so there would be someone who can carry a gun. Bottoni points out that armed presence doesn't stop these things from happening, and with a response time under five minutes we could have Police on campus with very little notice.

In addition to making campuses safe they also help make them fair. The MATC security patrols the parking lots, not only to prevent auto break ins, but to enforce the parking as well. If there is a student parked in the lot with multiple violations on campus they will be towed from an outsourced company that is in a written agreement with MATC. If a student has outstanding parking citations on campus they will be put on financial hold and will not be able to continue following semesters until these are paid off. The objective is to make parking fair for all paying students. New to ths year MATC security is issuing their own parking citations in order to generate revenue for the college.

MATC security will be introducing something new and useful to our campus, by March 1, 2009 MATC will have a district wide notification system in place. This will be a link between MATC security with students and staff via email and text message, the program is being called, "The Wolfpack Alert". This will be used to alert people on "things that need to get out to the students quickly," says Bottoni. This program will be available to students and will be optional. There will be a link on the student page for people to sign up for it, individuals can decide how they would like to receive the alerts, options being text, MATC email, or private email. There is also the possibility of this being linked with sites such as facebook.com and myspace.com. The program will be available for students for as long as they would like and they can stop receiving messages any time simply by removing ones name from the contact list. The program, e2 Emergency Notification System, is being used by almost 400 campuses nationwide, including two other districts in Wis. already using it.

If anyone is looking for more information on the MATC security division you can visit their website, http://matcmadison.edu/security/, where you can find a link to their annual report. This report, required through the "Clery Act", must be updated no later than October 18 for the previous year. This is a report required by any institute that receives financial aid. Most campuses have this available online but if asked, all campuses with financial aid must present this report to you.

MATC has security in place to serve the students and staff. They are keeping up with the changing times and are striving to make the campuses as safe as possible.