Editor’s Note: “10 Questions” is part of a weekly series in which a Daily reporter interviews a prominent person on the Iowa State campus. To suggest a person to interview, send an e-mail to www.daily.feedback.edu. This week’s interview is with Loras Jaeger, director of the Department of Public Safety. The following is the transcript of his conversation with Nina Fox, Daily reporter.

What do you do as director of DPS?

We manage two divisions; one is the law enforcement division, and the other is a parking division. We have 33 police officers that are certified, and we have about 110 to 115 students that also work here. The students do a number of services of public safety. They are the primary ticket writers or “parking nazis,” and they lock and unlock the buildings on campus. We have a number of students in the dispatch force, students that do clerical, records, data entry and assist us with special events, football games, concerts and other events.

What was the worst case you had to deal with here at ISU?

I think when we get caught in very controversial issues, you have to try and resolve those problems. That is very difficult. I was a city police officer for Cedar Falls Police Department for 22 years before I came here and was a detective there for 11 of those years. So when you talk about a difficult case, I think more of the difficult cases I was involved in there.

In the recent finding of the meth lab in University Village, have you found that drugs are a serious problem on this campus?

The drug problem at Iowa State is serious. The meth problem in all of Iowa is almost out of control. It is not surprising that a meth lab was found on this campus; it’s all over the state of Iowa. All you need to do is pick up a newspaper or listen to the radio or television, and it’s almost daily now they announce that another meth lab has been taken down somewhere. We’re part of a tri-county drug task force, so the task force is quite involved in other meth labs, but this is our first one on the Iowa State campus.

I understand there was some talk of DPS carrying guns in the future.

The regents many years ago made decision that the three regents institutions, [which includes] the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa, have unarmed police officers. They have not moved by that stance, and I have seen no movement by the Board of Regents in that situation. If the students wanted the three regent institutions to be armed, they could probably do that, but at this point, I have not seen a cry from students to have that done.

Speaking of U of I and UNI, how does the Department of Public Safety at those universities compare to DPS at Iowa State?

Well, I know UNI very well because I worked with the city police department in Cedar Falls for a lot of years. They have a very competent staff, while the University of Iowa, I’ve worked with since I’ve been here. Chuck Green is the director there, and he’s very good.

I think there is a perception in Iowa that somehow if you’re working in university law enforcement, you are somehow not as competent as if you were working in another part of law enforcement. I find the almost opposite to be the [case]. I’m not sure you’re going to find a law enforcement agency in the state of Iowa that has a lawyer, a clinical psychologist, aerospace engineer and number of other people with master’s degrees that have taught, written and have done research that you find at Iowa State University. This is a very competent organization.

How do you react toward the student responses you get about DPS?

It depends. Because we have a lot of students that work for us, we get a fairly positive responses from a number of students. You know, I was in college at one time. You always tend to make fun of the establishment; that’s part of this whole growing experience and learning experience, so I’m real familiar with that.

And that’s all right. I always think it’s good to question authority. We’re criticized for issues we really don’t have control over, like parking, which we constantly get criticized for, yet we do not make the rules. The rules are made by the university or transportation advisory group. We are only given the responsibility to enforce the situation.

Many people would like to know, where all the money from the parking tickets goes?

Generally, the bulk of the revenue comes in two ways: permits and parking. And that money is put back into the system. It either pays the wages of the people who write the parking tickets and full-time staff or it goes into parking improvements. So any time the parking lots are cleaned during the winter because of snow … signs put up, resurfaced, expanded, all that money comes out of that fund. When people get on the bus at the Iowa State Center and ride that bus for free, it’s not free. It costs parking somewhere … just a little under $200,000 to fund. So that money goes back into the system to help improvements.

Will we be seeing an expansion of parking in the future?

We’re always looking for opportunities to expand parking. The issue is money. We’ve been told a number of times by students “Why don’t you just build a parking struture?” When you’re looking at a parking structure that costs anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 per space to build, tell me — where you get all the money? And students at this point have not been willing to pay the fines, the money. The fee is necessary to expand on parking.

What does DPS have to offer the students?

There’s the Help Van that operates from 7:30 in the morning until 3 in the morning; if you have motor problems, the escort service. We have a number of prevention programs, self-defense that operates nightly. We also have a sexual assault response team that deals with people who have been victimized. We have a clinical psychologist that works here that runs behavioral science … that deals with students that are being stalked, harassed and those kinds of things.

And finally, the question everyone wants to know, do you watch any cop shows?

No, not really. Cop shows aren’t very realistic. It’s sad because you see cop shows where people get shot, and they put their arm around their significant other and walk off into the sunset, and that’s just not the way life is. You get shot, it’s a very traumatic situation. I’ve seen a lot of people that have been shot in my 30 years in Cedar Falls, and it’s not like anything you see on television. A lot of times we glorify this whole issue of weapons, thinking it’s the way to go, but our country is in a crisis because of it.