COLORADO SPRINGS — The University of Colorado-Colorado Springs (UCCS) confirmed the campus police chief, director of housing operations, and emergency management program director left their positions in July.
A spokesperson for the university said UCCS Police Chief DeWayne McCarver left the university on July 5 and Director of Housing Operations Ralph Giese retired on July 31 after 20 years with UCCS.
UCCS Police Chief McCarver posted on LinkedIn about his resignation, saying he made the decision to leave to be closer to family in Alabama. A portion of his post reads:
"It has also been very difficult to be the leader I know I should be while being torn between work and family. It is with very mixed emotions that I have decided to completely retire from law enforcement to move back to Huntsville."
A spokesperson for UCCS said the university posted a brief article about Chief McCarver's departure on its news site, Communique, on June 26 and sent out the link in a newsletter. The Communique article mentions Chief McCarver's leave in the fourth paragraph.
UCCS said the Emergency Management Program Director left the university on July 24 but did not elaborate on their reason for leaving.
The departures of several campus leaders come five months after a double homicide inside a campus dorm room. Former UCCS student Nicholas Jordan has since been charged with the murders of 24-year-old Samuel Knopp and 26-year-old Celie Montgomery. After the campus deaths, some students raised concerns about campus safety, including inside campus housing.
Josie Gimmestad, a junior at UCCS, said she believes students shouldn't have to go searching for important staffing changes.
"You would think, you know, after this huge safety event on campus that we would know about, like, who's in charge of the safety of the students," she said. "I have a lot of questions and of course, I feel like suspicious. It's hard to not feel like it looks bad and like they're hiding something from you."
The UCCS spokesperson said it is not university policy to communicate personnel changes to the public. In May 2023, the university sent a press release announcing the departure of former UCCS Chancellor Venkat Reddy to return to his position as a finance professor. In December, UCCS announced the hiring of Interim Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet via a press release.
When asked why the university announced chancellor staffing changes but not other leadership changes, a UCCS spokesperson said: "Given that the Chancellor role is the top position at the university, we obviously send out notices, in coordination with CU System, when the person in that role changes. There is no other position for which we send out press releases."
UCCS declined our request for an interview with Chancellor Sobanet on the staffing changes, saying the Chancellor cannot publicly speak about personnel issues. A university spokesperson said the job posting for UCCS Chief of Police will be posted soon.
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