DECATUR, Ill. – For Tom Friend, has been more than a workplace. It has been the place where he discovered a career path, earned a degree, and found a deeper calling to serve the campus community.
Friend, Assistant Director of , recently graduated from the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois, completing the Police Academy and becoming a certified law enforcement officer in the state of Illinois. Friend was also recognized as one of the top academic performers in the Illinois Police Training Institute Class 2026-01, which included 92 cadets.
The achievement marks an important milestone for Millikin Public Safety and reflects the University’s continued investment in the safety and support of its campus community.
“I am ecstatic to be able to serve the Millikin community in a greater capacity than I was able to as security,” Friend said. “It’s definitely a welcome change, and it is very exciting.”
Friend’s connection to Millikin began in 2013, when the University first hired him. Since then, he has built a career centered on helping students, faculty, staff, and visitors feel safe and supported on campus. Even during a brief time away from Millikin, Friend said he remained connected to the University and the people he had worked alongside.
Friend is also a Millikin graduate, earning his degree in Organizational Leadership in 2018 while working at the University. He said his path into public safety was not something he had planned from the beginning, but once the opportunity came at Millikin, it quickly became clear that he had found the right fit.
“I’ve always had an interest. I wouldn’t say I ever actively pursued it,” Friend said. “And then the opportunity to work here came up. I took it. Fell in love with it and fell in love with Millikin. I ended up graduating from Millikin, and the opportunity to pursue policing came up.”
Friend completed the 16-week residential academy in Champaign, Ill., beginning in January and graduating on April 23. The training included physical training, intensive legal instruction, report writing, patrol operations, traffic stop training, and integrated scenario-based exercises designed to prepare cadets for a wide range of real-world calls.
The early portion of the academy was heavily focused on Illinois law, including what officers can and cannot do legally, what state statutes say, how laws are enforced, and when enforcement is appropriate. As the academy progressed, Friend and his classmates moved into scenario training, including exercises with actors portraying situations officers may encounter in the field.
“They would have actual method actors come in, and we would do police calls with people that are acting out these scenarios,” Friend said. “Whether it’s a domestic, whether it’s a shooting, whether it’s a fight, whether it’s ‘I don’t like the music my neighbor’s playing’ — anything in the gamut of police calls — and we respond, handle it, write the full report, do the whole process.”
The schedule was demanding, Friend said, with days often beginning early in the morning and continuing late into the evening.
“It was a lot in a very short period of time. It’s very intense,” Friend said. “It wasn’t uncommon to be going from four in the morning to 10 at night and then doing that five days a week.”
Despite the intensity, Friend described the academy as one of the most meaningful experiences of his life.
“Other than being away from home, it was the greatest experience of my life,” Friend said. “It was a blast. It was fun. You’re constantly learning, constantly doing. I made some really great friends, got some really great networking put in with other agencies in the state.”
One of the most meaningful parts of the experience for Friend was recognizing the connection between his academy training and the foundation already established within Millikin Public Safety.
Friend said he saw many of the same principles emphasized at the academy that Millikin Public Safety has long used when training its team, including relationship-based community policing, de-escalation, and professional interaction.
“As I’m going through this training, I’m seeing it’s exactly the training that we’re using for our people,” Friend said. “The stuff that’s taught there is the stuff that we train our security officers on day one — relationship-based community policing. This is how you de-escalate. This is how you interact professionally.”
For Friend, the role of Public Safety at Millikin begins with service. Whether responding to a concern, helping solve a problem, or connecting someone with the right resource, he wants the campus community to know that his office is there to help.
“Our primary goal is here to help,” Friend said. “To help you, to help solve your problems with you, to help you find solutions to your problems. Even if that’s not from us, we’re going to help you find the people who can help you. So come see us. That’s what we’re here for.”
