Police Chief Vern White.
Ottawa police Chief Vern White will trade in his police blues for a Senate robe on Feb. 20, 2012.
Laura Mueller
OTTAWA - He’s the imposing, stern face of one of the Canada’s largest municipal police forces.
But few would know that Ottawa police Chief Vern White is just as comfortable in a graduation cap as he is in his police blues.
In a profession that prizes a street-smart, rough-and-tumble approach, White is turning that concept on its head and making scholars out of his officers.
And he is starting with himself.
“Yeah, I’ve been in school for 20 years,” White said wryly. “I would paint myself as a cop. A lot of others might paint me as an academic.”
He is in the final stages of his doctorate degree in leadership and public accountability.
That latest chapter follows a long history of learning that began with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology from Acadia University and a diploma in business administration. He followed that up with a master’s degree in conflict analysis and management (his thesis was on restorative justice) from Royal Roads University in British Columbia.
“When I joined the police, I didn’t have a degree, and I didn’t know I could actually get one.
“I see the importance of continuous learning,” White said, and it’s an attitude he tries to pass on to his troops, no matter how much he might get teased for it.
But White doesn’t constrain his academic pursuits to his own learning. He has been passing on his knowledge to others through guest lectures and university courses for several years, and now he has taken it to a new level.
In 2008, White worked with his doctoral university, Charles Sturt University in Australia, to develop an undergraduate program specifically for Ottawa Police Service officers. So far, 16 have enrolled in the two-year program, two classes have graduated and the program is now being opened up to officers from other police forces.
It focuses on criminal justice and has recently been made available to police officers from across Canada. Most of the program is done online, with the final course at the university (at the officer’s expense).
He also teaches a master’s-level online course in global law enforcement for Charles Sturt.
Locally, White is a familiar face in classrooms at both Carleton University and the University of Ottawa as a professor at the graduate and undergraduate levels.
“I enjoy the interaction with young people in particular,” White said. “I do find I learn a lot about finding solutions in other ways, from people who haven’t already decided what the solution is.”
The chief is also making a name for himself across the globe as an international lecturer and as a professor. In his four or five weeks of “vacation” time, White travels to places like India, Dominica and Alaska.
It started in 1998, after someone heard him speak at a community problem solving forum when he was in the RCMP in the Yukon. That led to a speaking gig in Alaska, and White never looked back.
“I learn something every day,” White said about his globe-trotting lecturing. “I will bring back some different thinking,” he said.
His most recent jaunt took him way out of his comfort zone, to the Chinese Peoples’ Police University in Beijing.
White was ready for a culture clash as he addressed halls of up to 160 policing students and senior police officials on topics such as police accountability and transparency and community mobilization.
“It’s a little more difficult there because things like possession of 50 grams of cocaine is a death penalty. So having a discussion around addictions is challenging,” he said.
“When they talk about human rights issues, it’s really interesting because they talk about law and justice. It’s their job to hold up the law. If the law changed and the justice system was different, they would uphold it differently,” White said.
“I spoke really openly about what I see as the changes in policing needed (in order to be) successful,” he added.
Community engagement is the missing piece in China, but it’s a philosophical difference White said he feels almost anywhere he travels, including Australia.
White said lecturing is the best way to teach other cops about his approach to policing.
“Sometimes you really do have to get the message out one lecture at a time.”