Mercer University is now offering a Public Safety Leadership Institute (PSLI), which began Jan. 7 on Mercer’s Atlanta campus. The Institute is designed to examine current leadership models and practices and to create an awareness of the knowledge, skills and attributes of a successful leader in the public safety environment. The PSLI has been a collective effort of Mercer’s Tift College of Education and the Division of Extended Education.
“The Public Safety Leadership Institute was established to provide leadership skills to public safety officials like firefighters, police officers, the sheriff’s department and others,” said Thomas Kail, Ph.D., Dean of Mercer’s Division of Extended Education. “Since Sept.11, people are realizing we need to have leadership in the area of public safety and this is Mercer’s way of meeting this need.”
The program is targeted for executives in municipal, county, state and federal agencies representing law enforcement, fire emergency medical services, emergency communications, corrections, juvenile justice, parole, probation, Court systems and their investigative units, emergency management and enforcement/security units within state and federal agencies. The program is designed for a 16-month period with executives meeting for a five day period every other month.
PSLI has received several endorsements from such Georgia public safety agencies as the Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council, Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police and the Georgia Sheriff’s Association Inc.
Founded in 1833, Mercer is a 7,300-student, comprehensive, Baptist-affiliated university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees through the College of Liberal Arts, the Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics, the Tift College of Education, the School of Engineering, the Walter F. George School of Law, the School of Medicine, the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing, the Southern School of Pharmacy and the James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology.
Mercer University has campuses in Macon and Atlanta and four off-campus extended education centers located in Douglas County, Covington, Griffin and Eastman. The University also operates the Mercer Engineering Research Center in Warner Robins and the Mercer University Press in Macon. For the past 12 years, Mercer has been ranked among the leading universities in the South by U.S. News & World Report.
