MILAN, NM – Police Chief Carl Ustupski recently graduated from the School of Police Staff and Command at Northwestern University Center for Public Safety. Ustupski was a student in SPSC Class #528, which accommodated a total of 21 students during the 22-week program held from August 15, 2022, to January 29, 2023.
This program, which was implemented by the Center for Public Safety in 1983, has graduated over 30,000 students both nationally and internationally. The Center for Public Safety was established at Northwestern University in 1936 with the specific goal of expanding university-based education and training for the Law Enforcement Community. Since its inception, the Center has broadened its original objective and now provides a variety of courses and programs in the area of Police Training, Management Training, and Executive Development.
Ustupski spoke about how he first learned about the program, “I was recommended years ago when I was up in Wisconsin… they said it’s a good leadership class. ‘You should take it if you want to advance in your career because you learn about budgeting, human resources, traffic operations,’ every week it was something new.”
The School of Police Staff and Command provides upper-level college instruction in a total of twenty-seven core blocks of instruction and additional optional blocks during each session. The major topics of study include Leadership, Human Resources, Employee Relations, Organizational Behavior, Applied Statistics, Planning and Policy Development, Budgeting and Resource Allocation.
Each student is academically challenged through written examinations, projects, presentations and quizzes in addition to a staff study paper that are all required parts of the curriculum. Upon successful completion, students may be awarded a total of 6 units of undergraduate credit from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
“Some weeks [we had] eight assignments due for that week, [sometimes] nine assignments, up to ten or eleven. It was kind of a lot of work, but it was well worth it. During the class I started utilizing stuff that I was learning,” Ustupski said. He also spoke about his experience completing the class online, “[Completing the class] online was helpful with my schedule because I would have to do my chief stuff during the day, try to work on the assignments and then go home for three or four hours a night. Basically, that was seven days a week.”
Ustupski spoke about one of the assignments that he had to complete, “I printed out job satisfaction surveys that we had to do a paper on, it was a gauge for the officers on: are they satisfied with their pay, their supervision, their training opportunities, room for advancement… It was pretty consistent where the guys were at. Pay is a huge thing in this profession, advancement opportunities, job security, it measured that. It was stuff that you could utilize pretty much every day.”
Graduating and utilizing the training was the best part according to Ustupski. He said, “It was tough but, with any training you go in thinking, ‘How am I going to use this training back in my community?’ … The best part was going through the class or working on assignments… every week it seemed like there’s an assignment that I could utilize right now in the community.” Ustupski also said that talking with other officers from across the country and internationally was also a huge benefit.
Ustupski mentioned that what kept him going was his competitiveness, “My goal was highest grade in the class, because that keeps me motivated. I did finish with a 99.07%, but they don’t tell us who scored the highest… I set a goal and that’s what got me through it. Ustupski also spoke about his next goal, “I’m always trying to gain more knowledge [and] go to training. My next goal is to get my masters, I’ve been trying to find the time, I would love to knock that out if I can, it’s a goal of mine but also the topics covered benefit not only the department but the community.” Ustupski said he’s also hoping to eventually complete training at the FBI National Academy when he has time.