Criminal Justice kicks off semester with career fair

The Department of Criminal Justice, which utilizes professional technology and practices in the new College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences building’s learning spaces, will host a career fair from 11 a.m. through 2 p.m. on Oct. 5 in the Muse Banquet Room.

The collaborative effort between Career Services, faculty and Lambda Alpha Epsilon – the criminal justice professional fraternity – will bring local, state and federal criminal justice agencies onto Radford’s campus to look for future employees.

Radford University’s Criminal Justice program has a graduation rate 16 percent higher than the Virginia state average. To further improve their competitiveness in the job market, the Department of Criminal Justice recently hired four new faculty members.

Research faculty member Rachel Santos joined the department in August 2016, as well as tenure-track faculty members Luke Hunt, Roberto Santos and ‘Shawn Smith.  

The Department of Criminal Justice is bringing a speaker to Radford’s campus the week of Sept. 18. At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21, Senior Special Agent and Radford alumnus Jon Cromer ‘90, of the Virginia State Police, will give a presentation on criminal investigative analysis. Cromer will explore what criminal profiling entails and how it is applied to the larger investigative process. The various domains of profiling will be described during the presentation, which will take place in the Bonnie Auditorium.

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The new College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences building has many new learning spaces that will give students professional experiences at Radford University.

The department also collaborates in both the local community and the region to provide real-world opportunities for its students.

  • Criminal Justice faculty members Nicole Hendrix and Riane Bolin, along with students, work with the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home.
  • Maggie Pate and Shelley Wagers work with the Virginia Batterer Intervention Programming Board.
  • Isaac Van Patten serves as an embedded criminologist for the Roanoke Police Department.
  • Stephen Owen has worked with Virginia Department of Health, Radford University Emergency Management, Radford University Police Department, Radford Fire Department and the Radford Police Department on emergency exercises.
  • Adjunct faculty member Todd Jones has coordinated to have the Virginia Department of Fire Program’s burn trailer twice visit Radford’s campus.

Additional community outreach is also in the works.

“A number of Virginia high schools teach criminal justice,” Criminal Justice Chair Stephen Owen said. “We’d like to invite teams to travel to Radford to compete in processing a crime scene. We’d set up the crime scene, then they would process it. The teams will be evaluated on their success in collecting evidence appropriately and developing an investigative hypothesis.”

The competition is tentatively scheduled for the spring and is designed to have high school students gain experience early on using professional equipment in the field of criminal justice.

The crime scene competition will make use of the new facilities on Radford’s campus, which includes a forensic lab, a court room, emergency operations center and a watch center.

The facilities also benefit current Radford students, who use the professional learning spaces and professional equipment, which are consistent with what police agencies both deploy and utilize on a regular basis.

Potential employers will look for students’ ability and comfort with the equipment and methods they use on a day-to-day basis. Approximately 30 employers are attending the career fair.

For more information on the career fair or if you are an employer wishing to register for the event, please visit the career fair website.

For a full list of speaker and events in the department of Criminal Justice, please visit the Criminal Justice website.

Sep 20, 2016
Max Esterhuizen
(540) 831-7749
westerhuizen@radford.edu