While some officers at the University of Rhode Island have prior policing experience before working for the campus police, one police officer is a freshly graduated URI alumnus.
Patrolman Cameron Schneck ‘15, played hockey for the university from 2011 to 2015, and was also the assistant captain for the 2014-2015 season. According to a URI press release, he was also the recipient of the 2014-2015 Sean O’Neil Best Defensive Forward Award. Before becoming a full-time student at URI, Schneck played junior hockey in Massachusetts while he went to URI part-time.
Schneck has been on the campus since he was practically a baby. His father has been the Division 1 volleyball coach for 36 seasons and plans to retire after this year.
“I’ve grown up on this campus, hanging out with my friends, worked at the volleyball camp for my parent that they run,” he said. “So I’ve grown up on this campus and been here countless hours.”
Originally a kinesiology major, Schneck had a change of heart and realized he wanted to be a police officer. He took criminal justice, psychology and sociology courses before graduating with a bachelor’s degree. He began his job hunt only to have URI offer him a job at the campus police. He took the job, attended the police academy for five months and is now a full-fledged campus police officer. He admitted he is content to be done with the officer training process and is happy to be where he is now.
“I love it,” he said in reference to his job on campus. “I wanted to give back to the community that I grew up in and spent so much time in. That’s really important to me.” Since he is such a recent URI graduate, he can easily see himself where students are today. Schneck admitted that he misses college, but he is happy in his position.
Schneck wants all students to know that he and the other officers on the force are all very approachable and are there to help them when they need it. Students can go and talk to them for whatever reason.
“I think one of the biggest things, all of law enforcement, we signed up for this job to help people,” said Schneck. “And here we have a lot of officers that really do care about these students, we do want to help students, we want them to know that they can look past the uniform, it’s just something that they wear.”