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Consulting Competencies

STALCOMMPOL, Inc. is a nonprofit factfinding and consulting group that helps college students and employees improve campus safety.  We obtain information about issues affecting campus security and recommend policy improvements.

In many cases, we are able to help implement constructive change by operating as an organization.  Additionally, we encourage our members to make proposals and undertake projects on their own.

Our fourteen current members include students, alumni, and retired administrators, primarily from Harvard and MIT.  We frequently sponsor short-term research projects by students seeking to join our group.

We analyze campus crime data, observe security operations, and interview a wide variety of community members.  Our sources include union security guards; union leaders; contract security guards; on-campus contract security supervisors; patrol officers; independently minded administrators; ethically principled student activists; and representatives of concerned student organizations.

Our commitment is not to the university’s management, but to the interests of the university community as a whole and of our sources in particular.  The individuals we interview generally recognize this personal commitment.  They typically respond by providing more helpful and valuable information to us than they would to the more “rational” analysts of a classical consulting firm (whose nominal commitment is to the client sponsoring the project).

The challenge is to protect our sources from adverse outcomes while simultaneously formulating recommendations that are well-balanced and fair.  Fulfilling this dual reponsibility frequently requires ingenuity, indifference to political criticism, and determination.

The morale of disaffected employee frequently improves as they recognize that they can finally communicate their concerns and receive knowledgeable responses (from our experienced investigator-consultants) without fear of adverse repercussions.  In a sense, our analysts serve both as management consultants and—for nonunion contract employees—as “shop stewards.”

STALCOMMPOL, Inc. was founded as a group in March 2003.  Individual members have been helping universities improve their security operations since 2001.

We are funded by alumni donors and operate exclusively on a pro bono basis.

Advisors: James Herms; Betty Hillman Sultan

8 Aug. 2005.  Stalcommpol Inc.
 Student-Alumni Committee on Institutional Security Policy, Cambridge, MA.  
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