Gerald Lewis Jr. has been appointed the next vice president for Public Safety, stepping into the role nine months after James McShane’s retirement, Executive Vice President for University Facilities and Operations David Greenberg announced in an email to the University community today.

He will officially take over from interim Vice President for Public Safety Deidre Fuchs, who will return to her role as assistant vice president for investigations for Public Safety on Sept. 26.

Lewis has over 30 years of experience in law enforcement and higher education, Greenberg wrote. He most recently served as the chief of police at the University of Connecticut, where he was hired in 2021. Prior to that, he was the associate vice president and chief of police at the University of Texas at San Antonio, chief of police at East Carolina University, and chief spokesperson for the New Jersey State Police.

“Gerald brings to Columbia a relentless focus on safety and an unwavering commitment to diversity, inclusion, and community partnerships,” Greenberg wrote. “His ability to bring these lenses to Columbia’s presence in New York City will be invaluable given the importance of inclusivity in all facets of public safety’s work.”

Greenberg said Lewis was chosen after a nationwide search led by himself and Dennis Mitchell, the executive vice president for University Life. Although Greenberg said the process involved “the participation of university stakeholders across Columbia’s campuses,” it took place largely behind closed doors. The full rosters of the search committees for other administrators—for example, in the cases of numerous deans appointed in the past year—are typically posted online.

Greenberg said Lewis will be a “critical partner” in the work of the Inclusive Public Safety Advisory Committee, a group that has met monthly to consider Public Safety policies, training practices, and programs through the lens of inclusivity.

The committee was launched in February as part of Columbia’s Commitment to Anti-Racism, which University President Lee Bollinger announced in July 2020 in response to national calls for racial justice in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. Its creation was one of the recommendations of an interim report released in December 2020 that was aimed at making Public Safety more inclusive and efficient. Greenberg said the work of the committee mirrors the committees Lewis founded in past jobs.

Lewis’s appointment comes in the wake of two high-profile student murders near the Morningside campus that have reignited longstanding questions—and tensions—regarding the relationship between Public Safety, students, and community members. Following the death of Barnard first-year Tess Majors in 2019 and the subsequent increase in police presence near campus, student groups demanded to defund and reform Public Safety, pointing to incidents of anti-Black violence against students and a historically close relationship between Public Safety and the New York Police Department.

A December stabbing spree, which left School of Engineering and Applied Science doctoral student Davide Giri dead and School of the Arts visiting scholar Roberto Malaspina injured, led to similar increases in Public Safety and policing in the historically over-policed areas of Morningside Park, Manhattanville, and West Harlem, causing renewed concern from some experts and community members.

The appointment also comes as crime in New York City increases following a pandemic-induced dip, with citywide crime up 26 percent in August 2022 compared to August 2021, although incidents of violent crime in particular remain at historic lows. Over the summer, a suspected subway attack left a 29-year-old graduate student in the School of the Arts on a ventilator in the ICU. In an email to the University community in February, administrators warned about “disturbing reports of incidents occurring at stations and in transit on subway cars, as part of a general uptick in crime,” and encouraged students to utilize the University’s transportation options.

Crime in Morningside Heights and West Harlem, however, remains significantly lower than in the 1990s and 2000s, and violent crime in the area has dropped significantly since 2010.

​​News Editor Irie Sentner can be contacted at irie.sentner@columbiaspectator.com. Follow him on Twitter @iriesentner.