New UTPA police chief to start next month

EDINBURG -- Roger Lee Stearns has spent nearly the past 20 years roaming about university campuses from Texas to Tennessee.

No, he's not an indecisive life student who has declared every degree program under the sun.

Stearns has dedicated his life to campus law enforcement.

And on April 13, he's set to take the helm at the University of Texas-Pan American.

"There's two things that stand out about university community," Stearns said of his career path. "Everyone who comes to university is engaging in self improvement. The university community is also engaging in the impovement of society."

Stearns replaces Howard Miller, who was fired as UTPA police chief by the University of Texas System in September 2008 following an internal investigation. University officials have remained tight-lipped about Miller's dismissal.

Stearns comes from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., where he was a police major who oversaw 60 officers at that institution's police department.

When he starts his new gig, Stearns wants to work to involve the campus community with its police department.

"We can only be as successful as we want to be if we engage the community through the police department," Stearns said.

That engagement would involve new internship programs for criminal justice majors on campus and starting a citizen's police academy similar to the ones offered by local municipal police departments, Stearns said.

Stearns was one of three finalists who came out of a five-month search following Miller's departure.

"We're just looking forward to having him on board," said James Loya, UTPA's assistant police chief who has led the department during the search.

Campus police is Stearns' forte - he has spent his entire career at universities, he said. Before he started at Vanderbilt in January 2007, he spent a decade at the University of Texas at Dallas and at The University of Arkansas - his alma mater.

"They had the bar set real high at the University of Arkansas," Stearns said. "Most officers had degrees and advanced training."

Loya said he'd like to see Stearns do just that - provide officers with more advanced training and hopefully retain talent.

"That's always an issue," Loya said, "not just with our agency, but other agencies as well."

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Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.