Changing of the Guard

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Lawrence “Larry” Slamons (left), director of the University of Arkansas Police Department, will retire on Sept. 1, and Stephen Gahagans, currently the associate director of UAPD, will become the new director.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Lawrence “Larry” Slamons, director of the University of Arkansas Police Department, is retiring after 35 years at the university, effective Sept. 1. Donald Pederson, vice chancellor for finance and administration announced that Major Stephen Gahagans, associate director of UAPD, has been promoted to director. Slamons will serve as a consultant to Gahagans and the department until March 1, 2008.

Gahagans joined the University Police as associate director in 2003. He served 15 years with the Oklahoma State University Police Department in Stillwater, starting as a patrol officer and rising to the position of special projects assistant to the associate director. He was named director of the OSU at Tulsa Police Department, a position he held for four years before coming to Arkansas. He is also a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Association Academy.

“Larry Slamons has provided outstanding leadership here at the University of Arkansas for 35 years, and has built a respected, nationally accredited police department,” said Pederson. “Steve Gahagans’ performance as associate director over the last four years, as well as his experience at Oklahoma State, has demonstrated that he is the person to lead the University Police and meet the new security challenges of the 21st century.”

Gahagans’ first challenge will be to continue working to improve the campuswide emergency preparedness plan, and coordinate it with other emergency service agencies in northwest Arkansas. In addition he intends to work with other departments on campus to develop their own emergency action plans to complement the overall plan.

Gahagans sees campus security as an increasingly important and increasingly complex role for the University Police. That’s especially the case when working to meet the demands of a growing campus. He considers that the university’s growth will present the greatest long-term challenges for all aspects of the department.

“We are expecting growth, both in the number of students and the size of the campus,” Gahagans said. “One of the first things I’ll have to do is assess our current staffing levels and see if we have enough people to meet the needs of the growth we’ve already experienced. We will also have to plan for future growth, so we can continue to provide the services the community expects. The role of a university is to educate its students. It’s our job to provide a safe and secure environment for everyone on campus so the university can fulfill that role.

“Larry Slamons has built a very strong organization here, and our first job is to continue building on what he’s put in place, Gahagans continued. “I look forward to working closely with him for the next six months as we start building for the future.”

There was no campus police department at the University of Arkansas when Larry Slamons arrived in 1972. He was appointed director of the university’s security department after serving as chief of police at Western Illinois University. He accepted the position knowing the administration and community leadership had agreed to develop a campus security division of the highest professional stature, capable of providing the quality of law enforcement and campus security required to meet the diverse needs of students, faculty and staff of the University of Arkansas.

Slamons remembers when he started that the department had about 19 low-paid security officers, with no police authority. He spent the next two years reorganizing the department, hiring people who were capable of becoming police officers and working to build the department’s credibility on campus. By 1974 Slamons’ campaign had made enough progress that the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees approved a new name for the agency: the Department of Public Safety. More importantly, the trustees gave DPS officers full police authority on campus. In 1975 the first university officers graduated from the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy certification class. Later that year, after considerable debate on campus, the trustees approved arming qualified DPS officers.

In 1980 the university recognized that the department’s transformation was essentially complete, renaming it the University of Arkansas Police Department. By this time university officers were regularly investigating crimes on campus, enforcing traffic laws, making misdemeanor and felony arrests, providing security on campus as well as security training for students, faculty and staff and in every way fulfilling the responsibilities of a law enforcement agency. The department was progressive in its policies and practices. It was among the first in the state to emphasize proactive approaches to crime prevention. It was also the first in northwest Arkansas to hire a minority officer, and among the first to hire a female patrol officer. In 1995 the department became one of the first university police agencies accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, and that accreditation was renewed in 2000, 2003 and 2006.

Perhaps Slamons’ greatest achievement was something more difficult to quantify.

“I believe we made every effort to earn the respect of the campus community and of the other law enforcement agencies in the state,” he said. “If we accomplished that, the University of Arkansas has reason to be proud.”