High school, 2-year college just the start
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BY MARA H. GOTTFRIED, The (St. Paul, Minn.) Pioneer Press
The making of a cop traditionally took street smarts and a high school education.
But don’t be surprised today if a police officer has “Dr.” before his name or “J.D.” after hers.
Increasingly — even with a Minnesota state standard in place for decades that requires no more than two years of college — police officers are seeking out master’s degrees and doctorates.
The St. Paul Police Department has seen the movement toward advanced degrees in the last decade, said spokesman Paul Schnell, adding that about 10 percent of officers have, or are working toward, a graduate degree.
“Policing is so much more complex today than being able to shoot straight, drive a car fast and being big enough to wrestle down the bad guy,” said Schnell, “Policing today brings more complex problems.”
THE PUSH FOR EDUCATION
The St. Paul Police Department has a history, dating to the 1920s and ‘30s, of encouraging education, said William Carter III, who directs the University of St. Thomas’ police leadership program and is a former executive director of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training.
“We believe that education makes for a better cop and that collectively it increases the quality of police service and applies more rigor and clarity about how we do things,” Schnell said. “I think most people would recognize that the fact that you have a law degree or master’s degree or doctorate in and of itself won’t make you a successful police officer. What it takes is a combination of education with some of the traditional notions of street craft.”
But people are quick to say that’s not to suggest a less-educated cop can’t be a good one. After all, most officers have only an associate’s degree.
The push for community policing has shifted policing from a “response model” to problem solving. Today, for instance, only 25 percent of what the Eagan police force handles is crime-related.
“The rest of our work calls on more complex skills — mediation and problem solving,” said Police Chief Kent Therkelsen.
A study that Carter was involved with in 1991 found less than 1 percent of police officers in the state had master’s degrees.
On the job one year after graduating from college, Woodbury officer Neil Bauer started his master’s in police leadership, administration and education at the University of St. Thomas.
Bauer cites two reasons commonly mentioned for getting his master’s: He would like to teach criminal justice classes someday, and he thinks the degree will give him an edge for promotions.
Some beat cops are seeking degrees to apply to their jobs now.
St. Paul officer Jack Serier recently graduated from the same master’s program Bauer is enrolled in.
He says what he learned during his graduate work is helping him write about, research and plan a new field-training program for the department.
THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION
It used to be that police departments set their own educational standards for hiring. Oftentimes that was a high school diploma.
In 1977 the Minnesota Legislature formed the POST Board, charging the agency with creating the first law enforcement licensing system in the country. With that came the requirement that police officers hold an associate’s degree.
There’s been talk since then of changing the requirement to a bachelor’s degree, but a serious plan has never come forward, said Neil Melton, the board’s executive director.
“What’s happening is we’re getting a lot of the candidates to be police officers (who have two-year degrees), but they’re not finding jobs because of the competition,” said Mike Breci, who chairs Metropolitan State University’s School of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. “It’s almost getting to be that if you don’t get the four-year degree, you can’t get hired in the metro area.”
In the last five to 10 years, it’s been rare that Eagan has hired a police officer who doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree, said Therkel-sen, adding that more than 10 percent of his officers hold or are working toward a master’s degree. And beginning next year, a bachelor’s degree will be required to become a sergeant.
The concern about whether a push for more education will edge out the very people departments are seeking for diversity — underrepresented groups like women and people of color — isn’t a new one, said St. Paul police Cmdr. John Harrington, president of the National Organization for Black Law Enforcement Executives’ Minnesota chapter.
“The requirement of a two-year degree initially had somewhat of a chilling effect on minority recruitment,” he said. “Ultimately, we’ve been able to keep the numbers up.”
Harrington, who is in Hamline University’s public administration doctoral program, said he sees Hispanic, Asian and black officers in the law enforcement classes he teaches at area colleges.
“There is a pool that will be competitive as the standards are raised,” Harrington said.
THE OBSTACLES
There are some obstacles to cops seeking higher education — sometimes it’s tied to geography, other times it’s moving past stereotypes of what a police officer is.
Four years ago, Metro State began offering a law enforcement track to its master’s degree of public and nonprofit administration. The number of officers who have enrolled hasn’t been as high as expected, something Breci blames on the demanding schedules many officers work. So, beginning next fall, the university plans to offer the classes needed for the degree on the Internet.
And at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, officials are hoping the Board of Regents will approve a proposal next year for a master’s degree in criminology, said William Fleischman, a UMD sociology professor who is chairing the task group for the proposal.
“There’s quite an interest on the part of law enforcement in a 75-mile radius from here,” he said. “Some law enforcement folks have shift issues, so for them to drive to a program not in this area hasn’t been possible.”
St. Cloud State University plans to begin offering its new master’s degree in public safety executive leadership in January.
The traditional idea of a police officer doesn’t usually conjure images of hitting the books.
“Some people wonder why someone would want to be a cop if they have a bachelor’s degree or a graduate degree,” Carter said. “But why shouldn’t there be more education when a cop is charged with taking a person’s life at a moment’s notice, expected to respond in sensitive ways to a person in total chaos and understand ethics and constitutional law?
“I think we need to move from seeing a person who’s just a cop to seeing a person who’s a cop and has a doctorate or a master’s or a bachelor’s degree.”
Interested in advancing your Law Enforcement career? Check out PoliceOne’s Criminal Justice Program database; includes online and offline programs.