The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) has re-accredited Vanderbilt University’s police department. Vanderbilt is one of two campus law enforcement agencies in the state to hold IACLEA accreditation.
IACLEA accreditation recognizes that a department conforms to the highest professional standards for campus law enforcement and protective services. The police department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, also is accredited by IACLEA.
VUPD earned its initial IACLEA accreditation in 2010 and was reaccredited in 2013 and again this year.
One of Tennessee’s larger law enforcement agencies, VUPD holds state, national and international accreditation. The department provides comprehensive law enforcement and security services to Vanderbilt University; through service agreements to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which now operates as a fully independent, nonprofit entity as of April 30, 2016; and to a variety of Medical Center-owned facilities throughout the Davidson County area, including Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks.
Through a memorandum of understanding with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, Vanderbilt officers with special police commissions have the same authority as that of municipal law enforcement officers while on property owned by Vanderbilt, on adjacent public streets and sidewalks, and in nearby neighborhoods.
IACLEA was created by 11 college and university security directors who met in 1958 at Arizona State University to discuss job challenges and mutual problems and to create a clearinghouse for information for issues shared by campus public safety directors across the country. Today, IACLEA membership represents more than 1,000 colleges and universities in 10 countries. In additional to its institutional members, IACLEA also has 1,800 individual memberships held by campus law enforcement staff, criminal justice faculty members and municipal chiefs of police.