by Margot Ross ’24
October 31, 2023
On August 19, USN officially announced the appointment of Aerin Washington as Director of Safety and Security. Washington will oversee the implementation of new measures pertaining to visitor management, evacuation procedures, and campus surveillance.
Director Amani Reed identified a need for a Director of Safety and Security last semester; he was not only spurred on by events such as the incident at the Covenant School, but also by a desire to align with organizational norms at other large, urban schools across the country. Reed expressed that an administrator with expertise in the realm of security could potentially act as a liaison between USN and larger organizations such as Vanderbilt University.
“It’s often challenging for someone like myself to be connected to Homeland Security, the police force, [or] the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation—those all have policies and procedures, [and we] need someone who has an understanding of them,” Reed said. “You don’t necessarily want someone in my role making those sorts of policy decisions. This particular position was important because it allows us to have an internal person who knows our students, who knows our families, and [who] knows our community. ”
Though the position is new at USN, Washington—a former USN parent—is already familiar with the school community; she lived in Nashville for ten years working as a crime prevention officer at Tennessee State University before relocating to Utah. Through an understanding of USN culture, Washington plans to bolster campus security without substantially altering the nature of student life.
“[Security] is a service-oriented field…there has to be a conversation with the person who the service is being rendered to. A lot of the [security] initiatives are going to be based on me sitting down and having conversations with other administrators, parents, students, visitors, alumni, [and] board members,” Washington said. “One of the goals that I have is to provide that level of service with minimal disruption…I’m not coming in like a bull in a china shop, just starting to tear stuff up. That’s not the nature of USN.”
Reed shared Washington’s sentiment about disruptions to school culture—though security measures will likely be revamped, USN’s ethos of openness and connection with community partners will remain the same.
“I think there’s a bigger question around how we continue to be open to everybody in the community and make sure that we’re not walling off USN from Vanderbilt or from others—that is going to take someone who can help evolve our practices to make that work,” Reed said. “We will see, maybe, different sign-in procedures; we may see some different ways that we move around the building; none of that is predetermined. That’s part of [Washington’s] assessment.”
Reed also expressed that Washington’s unique insight to the community was part of what made him excited about her tenure.
“It’s hard to find people who have the right combination of experiences and the right understanding of the community that they’re serving. One of [our] worries was that it would feel like we had a presence that was not ours,” Reed said. “It’s a point of pride that she has an attachment to USN.”
Reed noted that it wasn’t just Washington’s familiarity with USN that made her a suitable fit for her position, however. A current captain at the Vanderbilt University Police Department, Washington also has experience managing the security teams of multiple universities from across the country, including the University of Utah and Michigan State University.
“I came here from Michigan State University, where I was the inspector for professional accountability. I was a police officer there, but [I also] did things with their accreditation, policy and procedure development, and implementation audits,” Washington said. “At the University of Utah…I ran their campus security program, which consisted of a little over 20 security officers initially. We ended up scaling it to be significantly larger than that.”
At the University of Utah, Washington brought a heightened sense of professionalism and new resources to the campus police department. She also strengthened the school’s ties to the surrounding Salt Lake City community by scaling the security program to assist off-campus partners.
“At the University of Utah, when I got there, their campus security program was kind of an afterthought. They didn’t really have the capacity to give the kind of the level of service that they were promising a lot of the campus partners that they were going to give,” Washington said. “We worked with a contract security company to be able to scale our operations from a day-to-day basis. [For] non-campus locations that, because of the proximity to campus, really needed our help…we were able to work with a company called Allied Universal to deploy additional security officers to them. ”
Washington plans to utilize USN’s partnership with the Vanderbilt police department to enlist more security personnel, including school resource officers (SROs) and campus safety officers (CSOs).
“We just posted… two school resource officer positions,” Washington said. “Those police officers are post-certified, which means that they’re real police officers–they’re Vanderbilt police officers that will be specifically deployed to the University School of Nashville. ”
A letter from Washington sent on October 6 detailed additional security protocols that will be implemented throughout the academic year and into the summer of 2024. These measures include the “addition of a marked patrol car at the Edgehill campus all day,” the introduction of an “overhead paging system” for use in emergency situations, and the development of a training program for faculty and staff that will introduce proper responses to active shooters, missing children, bomb threats, and “other position-specific trainings.”
Despite the introduction of these policies, Washington expressed that she does not plan to alter or limit a hallmark of the high school experience: off-campus privileges.
“I don’t think the privileges are going to change. One of the things that I’ve committed to is understanding and taking into consideration at every step of the way…the culture of USN,” Washington said.
Washington reiterated that despite the fact that new security protocols are still taking shape, one thing is certain: that she will remain committed to creating a safe environment without altering the student experience.
