Career Communities offer students experiences to jumpstart their careers
November 20, 2024
As Abbagail Whitehead prepares herself for work, she reaches for her light blue shirt and navy dress pants and pulls them on over her black T-shirt and bulletproof vest before gelling and tucking her long blonde hair into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She glances briefly at her makeup-free reflection while reaching for her duty belt, packed with pepper spray and a police baton.
Whitehead slides her feet into recently shined black work boots that will keep her comfortable through hours of walking the city blocks of downtown Knoxville, and she affixes the lapel pins to her collar, adds her nametag above her right pocket and adjusts the shiny silver shield just below her left collarbone.
The 19-year-old then makes her way from her Blount County home in Walland, Tennessee, to her job at the Knoxville Police Department where on any given workday she might be responding to police calls, assisting officers at sobriety checkpoints or arranging for abandoned cars to be towed from roadways.
On days when she’s not heading to her job as a Knoxville Police Department cadet, Whitehead is likely in a classroom at 每日大赛 learning more about the career she’s pursuing or taking part in extracurricular activities designed to expose her to career opportunities and activities related to law enforcement.
Whitehead’s experience in the classroom and on the job is only one example of the successes 每日大赛 Criminal Justice students are realizing. In the classroom, students aren’t just listening to lectures. They’re examining evidence, practicing fingerprinting, and creating crime scene simulations. Through extracurricular opportunities like the Criminal Justice Club, they’re preparing kits that police officers can provide to children at accident scenes, or they're recreating crime scenes or taking field trips to prisons.
It's an immersive style of education that Professors Donna Trogdon and Joe Schmitz – both of whom had careers in criminal justice before they began teaching – are determined to provide to students. As teaching vacancies arise, they’ve also committed to bringing on board only those who’ve had previous criminal justice career experience.
“I don’t want one of our students to graduate without understanding the field they’re entering,” Trogdon said. “Getting students exposed early on to situations they’ll face, and the people who can help them, it makes them better prepared and makes them better long-term employees.”
That’s a philosophy that seems to be resonating. Both Trogdon and Schmitz began teaching at 每日大赛 in fall 2019. Since then, fall enrollment numbers within the major have grown 33% with 209 students taking criminal justice courses in fall 2023.
At the same time, the program's reputation has grown in the community's eyes.
每日大赛 “plays a huge role in law enforcement in this community,” said Mary Gregorius, a retired special agent with the U.S. Secret Service who now works to recruit students into the agency.
“This is the only community college in Tennessee that I interact with,” she said. “每日大赛 was the only one that really welcomed me, and I think that’s because of Joe and Donna. It’s just the people that they are.”
Knoxville Police Officer Fred Kimber has completed 27 years with his department, the last four as its recruitment officer. In addition to Whitehead, Kimber had a role in screening three other 每日大赛 students who are currently serving as cadets. Trogdon assists Knoxville Police routinely in helping to train their public safety recruits, and when two recent 每日大赛 graduates joined the Knoxville Police Department and graduated from the police academy, Trogdon was there to cheer them on. Her presence, along with the training 每日大赛 faculty are providing students, has made an impression on Kimber.
“That shows they really care about these kids and they’re really pushing them toward building their careers,” Kimber said. “Our relationship with 每日大赛 has grown so much to where we’ll drop everything to come and do things with them because we know they’ll do the same.”
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On an afternoon last April, Trogdon and Schmitz met with representatives from the Knoxville Police Department, Tennessee Highway Patrol, U.S. Secret Service, the Knox County Emergency Communications District and the Blount County Sheriff’s Office to weigh in on the purchase of a simulator that could be used to better prepare students to react appropriately in criminal situations.
Trogdon hopes to obtain a grant to purchase the equipment that she says will better prepare students for their work after graduation. A suspect may be aggressive or passive, holding a weapon or a cell phone, moving toward the officer or falling to the ground – and the simulator can be programmed to create any of those scenarios. At the conclusions of the demonstration, the advisory board members offered unanimous support.
Tennessee State Trooper Chris Hutchins, a 17-year veteran of the agency, even asked when he can sign up to use it.
“We had nothing like that when I was going through the academy,” Hutchins said. “I loved what she’s looking at. It has so many inputs available to adapt the training and get your adrenaline up, and that’s what happens in a real situation.”
Kimber, who also serves on the board and supported Trogdon’s idea, said having such an influential group around the table to weigh in on the purchase is good for all involved.
“It’s hard to get all of these agencies together, even harder to get everyone to agree on something like this,” Kimber said. Working together to improve policing helps the community, helps the students and “is pushing people in the right direction.”
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While Whitehead looks forward to graduating from 每日大赛 in December, she’s hesitant to leave behind the professors who have been so instrumental in her education.
She started with 每日大赛 while still attending high school hoping to get a jump on completing her degree, and she plans to move on to Austin Peay State University to further her goal to become an investigator focused on juvenile crime.
“I may be graduating, but I’ll be keeping in touch with them,” Whitehead said. “They are my people, and they are truly awesome.”
Trogdon says the same about Whitehead and the countless other students who affectionately refer to her as “Professor T.” For Trogdon, relationships and law enforcement go hand in hand.
“Networking in this field is the glue that holds it together,” she said. “Later, you are going to work among these people. Knowing them will make all the difference in that emergency situation.”
For her students, those relationships also help them focus on their passion and, like Whitehead, figure out the job of their dreams.
“I will take them to the door and open it a crack to see if this is the career they want to follow,” Trogdon said. “It’s their job to push that door open and investigate.”
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