Seneca College RED 2019 - 13

PRO
FILES

Seneca Police Foundations turns 50

PHOTO: RICARDO BERNARDINO

Two recipients of
Senecans of Distinction
Awards honoured

FOR ONE THING, there used to be a firearms
range at Newnham Campus.
"That was exciting and nerve-racking
at the same time," recalled Const. Monica
Rutledge about practising on the .38 Special
revolvers when she was a student studying
Police Foundations at Seneca.
For another, the program used to be
called Law Enforcement prior to 1998.
But to start from the beginning, it was
a couple of night school classes in 1969,
in an industrial building on Sheppard
Avenue. Before long, though, the classes
turned into a full-fledged program at
Newnham Campus, moving later to King
Campus where today, Police Foundations
is the largest program with 450 full-time
students in the School of Public Safety.
It's also the longest-running law
enforcement program in the province, and
on April 30, students, alumni, employees
and special guests gathered in Magna Hall
at King to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
"So much has changed. When I was

here, we had no computer labs, no Tim
Hortons," says Rutledge, who graduated in
1995. "We used to take these long bus rides
to get to King Campus and we'd hang out in
the hallway or in study groups."
An Ojibway from Red Lake, Ontario,
Rutledge has been working with the Toronto Police Service since 2000, the last few
years in the Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit
to bridge the gap between the Indigenous
community and the police force. As part of
the celebration at King, she was honoured
during a special Senecans of Distinction
Awards presentation along with recipient
Thomas Carrique, Commissioner of the
Ontario Provincial Police and former member of the Seneca Board of Governors.
"Seneca has a great program. It was very
informative and the faculty were great,"
Rutledge says. "By the time I graduated, I
knew how to work the Criminal Code and
the Highway Traffic Act. Having that under
my belt gave me the foundation I needed to
go on and become a police officer."

President David Agnew, OPP Commissioner Thomas
Carrique, Const. Monica Rutledge and King City Mayor
Steve Pellegrini.

RED

2019

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Seneca College RED 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Seneca College RED 2019
