Supporting Trans* Students
The Department of Public Safety often shares information with the Simmons community to help ensure our safety. What we don’t often see is the commitment to continuing education that helps the officers and civilian staff better understand the needs of a diverse campus.

On March 7th, Public Safety held a team workshop, entitled “Supporting Trans* Students at Simmons College: Understanding for Safety and Empowerment.” The workshop was conducted by Merrimack College professor Susan Marine. Dr. Marine is an expert in empowering women and gender non-conforming students, and she brings years of experience in violence prevention, diversity initiatives, and LGBT advocacy—issues that are vitally important to our community.

R.A.D. Self-Defense Classes
During February and March, Sgt. Jarrad Farrington and Inspector Michael Legee taught R.A.D. (Rape Aggression Defense) self-defense courses in Alumnae Hall. The R.A.D. system is a comprehensive course consisting of 12 hours of strategies to help develop awareness, increase prevention, reduce risk, and learn physical self-defense. To learn more about R.A.D. and upcoming classes, please call 617-521-1112 or email[email protected].

New Academy Graduates
We would like to congratulate Blake Coleman and Phillip Dimanche on their graduation from the Police Academy. Officers Coleman and Dimanche recently completed the Massachusetts Law Enforcement Training Alliance #9 course.

Funded by a generous grant from the Ruby W. and LaVon P. Linn Foundation, Technology and Advancement have partnered to significantly upgrade the technology available in the SOM Executive Dining Room (M513).

The Executive Dining Room is available for events that require advanced web conferencing and teleconferencing capabilities. With built-in support for presentations, screen and webcam sharing, GoToMeeting and Skype conferencing, and assistive listening devices, the space can accommodate events with up to 24 attendees.

To make things even easier, basic presentations can be set up without the support of Technology. Just follow the touch screen prompts to connect your device and display your presentation. For events requiring the use of conferencing features, please contact Technology two weeks in advance to ensure the proper configuration of equipment in the space.

If you would like to reserve the Executive Dining Room for an upcoming event, please contact Conferences and Special Events ([email protected]) to discuss available dates and times.

While many of our interactions with colleagues have moved to email, chat, web conferences, and other online communication tools, the telephone is still an important part of our day-to-day lives at Simmons.

In an effort to provide telephone service that integrates with our larger technology infrastructure and creates significant cost savings over time, Simmons Technology installed Voice Over IP (VoIP) phones across campus this year.

VoIP phones replaced our legacy phone system, which experienced frequent outages and was nearing a point at which we could no longer make repairs to keep it functioning at an acceptable level. As an alternative, VoIP represents a stable, long-term solution that maintains our previous phone functionality and provides new features, such as voicemail-to-email (available now), plus mobile phone twinning—forwarding calls from your office phone to a mobile or home phone—and a voice-activated directory (coming soon).

The Technology team’s primary goal is to implement new products and services in a way that ensures their long-term success. We recognize that moving to VoIP has been a significant transition for Simmons employees and we appreciate your patience. Your cooperation and participation are vital to the success of this project and everything we do to support business and strategic objectives.

For employees who need assistance with their VoIP phones, we have created FAQs and videos covering the most commonly used features. If you have additional questions about using your VoIP phone, please contact the Service Desk at 617-521-2222.