Mark Hargreaves, community liaison officer with the department of university safety, won a leadership award at Crime Prevention Ottawa’s 5th annual Community Safety Awards Nov. 4.
As a community liaison officer, Hargreaves said he has worked to build relationships with the students, staff, and faculty at Carleton to make the community a safer place for people to work and study.
“It’s a very rewarding experience I get from my job, knowing that the students can pursue education, and staff and faculty can work knowing that they are in a safe environment,” he said.
One of university safety’s recent initiatives that Hargreaves was involved with was Safety Week.
Events included monitoring speed on campus, and on Oct. 2 live-tweeting the calls and duties university safety performed.
“We did this to give the community a greater idea of the day-to-day work of the law enforcement officers around campus, and to give some more transparency,” Hargreaves said.
Hargreaves said winning the award was a surprise.
“I felt very honoured, as there are tonnes of agencies and individuals that have done excellent work at making Ottawa a safer place,” he said. “It’s important to remember that everyone works towards this, not just one person, but the community as a whole.”
Hargreaves said although there have been many strides made toward community safety, he wants to continue to building on them in the future.
