CAMMIE BAGLEY Executive Director & News Editor

After a semester long search for a new police chief, Piedmont College announced that they have chosen Marie Griffin-Taylor to fill the position.

Griffin-Taylor is a former deputy’s sheriff and resource officer for the Habersham County Sheriff’s Department in addition to being a mother of two sons. Her educational background includes a master’s degree in public administration from Walden University and a bachelor’s of science and criminal justice from Columbus State University.

The Piedmont community was first introduced to Griffin-Taylor at the open forum that was held Wednesday, Nov. 16. She was among two other candidates that were finalists for the chief of police position. During the forum, each candidate spoke for 15 minutes about their vision for campus police. Griffin-Taylor centered her presentation around her motto to ‘protect and serve.’

“To me, protect and serve is a promise to provide students, faculty, staff and visitors a safe and secure environment on campus,” said Griffin-Taylor. “It’s also a partnership to help mentor and learn from each other.”

She continued her presentation with a breakdown of what the phrase, ‘protect and serve’ means to her. She included ideas such as meeting safety and security needs on both physical and mental levels, ensuring emergency preparedness, enhancing transparency and encouraging volunteerism and a sense of community. One of her major points was that she wants to bring outside law enforcement to campus in order to have them become familiar with the campus in case of an emergency. She explained that she believes in perfect practice, meaning that police training would include practicing until the protocol standards were met. She concluded her time with a proposed mission statement for campus police.

Griffin-Taylor will step into her new role as police chief on Dec. 5.