The Valparaiso Police Department is pleased to announce the recent graduation of Captain Melanie Sheets, Detective Sergeant Chris Allison, and Patrol Lieutenant Jerame Simpson from the School of Police Staff and Command (SPSC) at Northwestern University. The officers have successfully completed the (22) week Staff and Command program. This program, which was implemented by the Center for Public Safety in 1983, has graduated over 21,000 students both nationally and internationally. Captain Sheets and Detective Sergeant Allison were students in SPSC Class #564, while Lieutenant Simpson was a student in SPSC Class #572.
The School of Police Staff and Command provides upper-level college instruction in a total of twenty-seven core blocks of education and additional optional blocks during each session. The major topics of study in clude Leadership, Human Resources, Employee Relations, Organizational Behavior, Applied Statistics, Plan ning and Policy Development, Budgeting and Resource Allocation. Each student is academically challenged through written examinations, projects, presentations and quizzes in addition to a staff study paper that are all required parts of the curriculum
The Center for Public Safety was established at Northwestern University in 1936 with the specific goal of ex panding university-based education and training for the Law Enforcement Community. Since its inception, the Center has broadened its original objective and now provides a variety of courses and programs in the area of Police Training, Management Training, and Executive Development.
The Valparaiso Police Department anticipates a variety of benefits from officers who attend this program, with VPD currently having seven SPSC graduates among their ranks. Many of the program’s graduates do go on to achieve a variety of leadership positions within their respective agencies.
