Community-oriented policing expert Calvin Hodnett ’90 will join UPD Advisory Committee

SUNY New Paltz is pleased to announce that Calvin Hodnett ’90 (Sociology), Senior Management Analyst with the U.S. Department of Justice, will join the University Police Department (UPD) Advisory Committee as its eighth serving member.

Hodnett is a New Paltz alumnus with more than 20 years of experience in the Department of Justice. He has extensive expertise in community-oriented policing, including as a former Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Advisor for Campus Public Safety.

Hodnett will join the following individuals who were previously announced as members of the new UPD Advisory Committee:

Erin (Corbett) Beale ’05, municipal police officer

Tyrell Connor, assistant professor of sociology and director of the criminology concentration

Anna Gjika, assistant professor of sociology

Tevin Green ’21 (Business Analytics; Management), Student Association representative

Matthew Kreuz ’21 (Economics; German; Political Science), Resident Hall Student Association representative

Edward Lawson, adjunct faculty in Black Studies and community leader in Newburgh, New York

UPD Chief Mary Ritayik

There are plans to add a small number of additional members, including an additional student, once this group has had an opportunity to begin its work.

Chief Ritayik took the lead in thinking about the establishment, focus and membership of the UPD Advisory Committee. The primary motivations for its formation were the systemic and recently amplified concerns across the country about police reform and police interactions with Black people and other marginalized groups, along with sustaining and growing the best traditions of good community policing on a public university campus.

This new committee will function alongside a longstanding advisory group within student governance.

More information about the purpose, charge and membership of the new UPD Advisory Committee can be found at this link.