Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) Chief of Campus Police and Director of Public Safety Joseph Hopkins was officially sworn  in Monday morning after serving 15 months as acting chief following the departure of Chief  Sean Collins.

 “This is a great place to work,” Hopkins said. “This college is a great place to be at.”

Hopkins joined the campus police after 27 years of service to Warwick Police. It’s a career path he noted that many of his colleagues on the community college’s force have followed as well. Collins was a Warwick Police officer before heading Campus Police.

“We hire mostly retirees, so we’ve been able to recruit some excellent officers from Lincoln, from Providence, all over the place,” Hopkins said. “We feel really good right now because of the quality of officers that we’ve been able to bring in.”

The CCRI campus police consists of 30 officers and two civilian dispatchers. As chief, Hopkins oversees  police on all four of CCRI’s campuses, and will make $120,000 annually.

Many of those officers attended the ceremony, including Lieutenant Mark Cabral, who said that Hopkins was a “real cop’s cop.”

According to interim CCRI president Rosemary Costigan, Hopkins stood out because of his community connections and values.

“He was a very strong advocate and leader for our community policing program, which incorporates non-sworn officers in terms of being available to help and assist students and faculty throughout the college campuses,” Costigan said. “And his overall commitment to the values and transparency that we expect here at CCRI [made him stand out].”

Throughout his time as interim chief, Hopkins said that he took a major focus on emergency response, with an Emergency Fitness Coordinator added to the force as a new position and a re-drafted Emergency Response Plan to be completed soon. Prior to becoming chief, Hopkins also helped lead the effort to accredit the CCRI Campus Police with the Rhode Island Police Accreditation Commission (RIPAC).

Now that he’s been sworn in, Hopkins said that little will change in terms of his priorities as chief, though he hopes to improve the campus police’s self-sufficiency.

The ceremony was short, which Hopkins said was in large part because he didn’t want to do much beyond a swearing-in. However, he said that he was glad that the college worked to make sure that his swearing-in was “a big deal.”

“I agree with it, I think it’s good for the college,” Hopkins said. “Community college is a unique environment. It’s very different from all the other colleges. The people that we serve and help around here come from all walks [of life], so it’s very unique, and that’s what makes it so enjoyable and rewarding to look at.”

Costigan said that being able to commemorate and celebrate Hopkins and his work was important, and commended CCRI’s event staff for handling the event.

As the college moves into the future, Costigan hopes that Hopkins will keep focus on community policing and the campus police’s policies in his now-official role.

“College campuses are increasingly becoming more complex, including for our police departments, and I see him as a great leader for the future for the college,” Costigan said.