By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
Steven J. Healy, Princeton University’s public safety director, will leave the post he has occupied since 2003 at the end of this academic year to work on national campus security issues.
Mr. Healy plans on turning his focus to working as a managing partner of Margolis, Healy and Associates, a safety and security services firm that advises the education community, and to establishing a National Institute of Campus Safety, according to a university statement. Around the time of Mr. Healy’s June 30 departure the university will launch a national search for a successor for a man who is credited with improving the public safety department’s image on campus.
Mr. Healy has also been lauded for his efforts in talking about campus safety in a variety of settings, including in front of both houses of Congress in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech tragedy, when a heavily armed student shot and killed 32 people on the university campus before committing suicide.
Of all of his work at Princeton, Mr. Healy singled out a focus on community policing as one of his proudest achievements.
He said many law enforcement agencies express a focus on community policing, but often there is scant evidence of such a focus when members of the public look for proof of community policing.
At Princeton University, however, he said the public safety department’s emphasis on community policing is highly evident.
As an example, he spoke of a public safety officer with an interest in amateur radio who used that interest to develop an ongoing relationship with students, though working with a student radio organization and attending its meetings.
”We’ve empowered officers to (get involved) in what they’re interested in,” said Mr. Healy. “It’s been good for our reputation.”
Mr. Healy said he would leave a detailed letter of his advice for his successor, but he did reveal some of its content to The Packet.
”I would tell them to find a mentor within the university administration who can really help the person learn how things get done,” said Mr. Healy, noting there are formal and informal structures that determine how things get done at an institution like Princeton University.
He said he learned the hard way when he arrived at Princeton in 2003.
”I am more hardheaded than most,” Mr. Healy said.

