October 8, 1999: Volume 47, Number 5

Officer Cultivates Interest in Police Work Abroad

The tourist attractions can wait. When B.J. Jenkins travels abroad, she first has to check out the local police station. "I always have a lot of questions about how police work in different countries," says the 22-year member of the College's safety staff. 

So, while others are taking in the sights, she makes a point of touring the control centers at local and campus police stations, asking lots of questions about how they deal with members of their communities, particularly visiting foreign students who may not be familiar with local laws and customs.

"One thing I've learned is that most countries are much tougher on crime than we are in the U.S." She also has learned that police in many other cultures deal with people who have a lot more at stake than most Americans. "People in some countries are willing to die for things that we take for granted," she said. "Things like freedom."

Her interest should come as no surprise to those who visit her at her post in the Nott Memorial, where she often fills the quiet moments with books and articles on criminology. It all began when she was a student at the University of Washington. "I was involved in lots of demonstrations," she recalls. "Things like sit-ins and marches against the war and for equal opportunity. But I didn't do anything violent, and I never got arrested."

Fascinated with how police and campus safety officers learned to deal with student unrest, she became a campus security officer while still a student at UW. Later, she served as secretary to university President Charles Odegaard. While in both positions, she continued to demonstrate. "I would always tell my supervisor or the president what I was doing, and I always did it on my own time."

Born in Mobile, Ala., and raised in Seattle, she found her way to Schenectady in 1971.

B.J. (aka Betty Jean) joined campus safety at Union in 1977 (as the first woman on the force) while taking classes toward her associate's degree in criminal justice from SCCC. In 1982, the year her second child, Cy, graduated from Union, she embarked at Union on an organizing theme major with an emphasis on campus safety issues for women. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1988.

All but one member of her family graduated from Union. Her husband, Solomon, earned a master's in engineering. Cy graduated in 1982, Jill in 1994. (Darryl, her eldest, graduated from UW.)

She and her husband live in the Pine Bush in a passive/active solar home that their son, Cy, designed while a student at Union.

A longtime volunteer for the Schenectady Rape Crisis Center, she has worked as a counselor for raped and battered women, and regularly assists women on campus. As a member of the Albany alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, she has been involved with a number of community service projects.

Of taking her post in the Nott, she recalls, "I was worried I might get bored in here. But there's hardly ever a quiet moment." Beside the exhibits and special events, there is no shortage of traffic in the form of curious visitors. "People come in here with all kinds of questions, like 'What is this building for?'"

She recalls a number of campus incidents that still bring a smile – streakers at basketball games, the morning she had to alert President John Morris to stay in his house because a black bear was loose on campus, or the time she stumbled upon two women doing a daytime Naked Nott Run. "I said, 'Girls, I won't ask you for ID, but I suggest you run as fast as you can.'"

After retirement in the next year, she plans to earn a Ph.D. in criminology. This winter, she plans to visit Israel and England, with some stops at police stations.

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