GCSU chief of police prepares for the future

Georgia College & State University (GCSU) Police Chief and Director of Public Safety Wesley Hardin completed the two-week Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police’s chief executive training program in May and is making plans for the upcoming school year.

Hardin joined the GCSU Public Safety Department in December 2023 after 28 years of law enforcement service at Tallahassee Community College. In February he completed his schooling at Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command in Illinois. Hardin recently completed the required 64-hour course to become a police chief in Georgia.

“It was helpful being in Georgia as long as I have and being a police officer for as long as I have. I had already covered a lot of that. This is just one of the ways they can say we’ve got a new executive and we’ve made sure to cover the things we need to cover, and he has the tools he needs to be successful,” said Hardin.

The course, held in Duluth at the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, consisted mainly of classroom work and lectures from subject matter experts, and even a media handling session from Randy Travis, but Hardin says he learned the most from networking in group sessions at the end of every day.

“I made some really good connections and probably what will be lifelong friendships and resources…If I’m having trouble finding funding for a grant or for a specific project I could ask, ‘Where have you found alternate funding?’… We’re networking for the resources because you can’t Google that stuff, but I can go talk to somebody,” explained Hardin.

Now that his degree and training for being a chief in Georgia are complete, Hardin plans to revamp GCSU’s field training officer (FTO) program to ensure new officers are receiving the resources they need to succeed.

“We started a new supervisor FTO program specifically for firsttime supervisors and sergeants. We’re also in the process of developing an intern program,” said Hardin. “What we do is we recognize excellence in the people that we have here and develop a new program internally so we’re always growing and improving and developing our own people.”

The police chief said the department is in the process of updating a lot of policies and procedures to make sure they fall in line with state and national accreditation and also to ensure that they are not only looking out for the best interest of the employees but the college.

“I came from the outside so I am grateful for the position, but wouldn’t it be nice if the next chief of police that we had was already here or the next lieutenant was already here? That helps give our people something to work for and something to look forward to.”

Looking forward to the next school year, Hardin is eager to continue the mentoring program that consists of self-defense and situational awareness classes, along with other resources.

“Just being able to get out in front of our students here and have the opportunity to speak and teach to classes. To have them come to us and say they’re interested in this and inquire about help, we’re looking forward to that,” expressed Hardin.

The newest implementation that students can expect is what Hardin calls a cross between a student police academy and an explorer program. This will give students who have a desire to work in law enforcement an opportunity to be the department’s next employees.

“So we can start to recruit, grow and develop our own students … even though we don’t have it yet, we’ve made a concentrated effort to reach out to the criminal justice and public administration program to give us an opportunity to speak to their classes.”

The program will offer graduate school student loan forgiveness in exchange for two years of service to the department. They have already hired one interested student out of three spring graduates who expressed interest in the program.

“I’m really hoping it takes off and that we’re able to have a lot more students become interested in working with us.”