Temple University’s public safety vice president will depart in June after a challenging tenure marked by policing changes

Temple University’s vice president for public safety will step down at the end of June after nearly four years on the job, the school announced Wednesday.

Jennifer Griffin, a former Delaware State police officer and captain, started at Temple in August 2022 as the school continued to cope with the aftermath of the shooting death of student Samuel Collington outside his off-campus apartment in November 2021. She led the department when Temple officer Christopher Fitzgerald was shot and killed in 2023 while on duty and through other challenges facing the North Philadelphia campus.

During her tenure, the university implemented or began implementation of all 68 recommendations from a safety audit by former Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey’s firm. In 2024, Griffin reported that violent crimes including aggravated assaults, robberies and thefts in the patrol zone had decreased. She was named national campus safety director of the year in 2025 by Campus Safety Magazine.

» READ MORE: More than a year after a Temple police officer was shot and killed, where does the university’s safety stand?

But the university also continued to struggle with police officer staffing, like many other departments nationally including Philadelphia’s, and faced criticism from the police officer union for not doing enough to attract and retain officers. Temple police union leaders called for Griffin to resign in 2023.

Temple President John Fry, who named campus safety a top priority when becoming Temple’s president in November 2024, said the university will appoint an interim leader and launch a national search for Griffin’s replacement.

His focus going forward will be to implement an officer staffing study released last December that said the university was below the middle tier of a framework that rates law enforcement agencies and said more officers were needed. Temple at that time pledged to boost police patrol officers by 58% over five years. Fry said at that time the school would aim to hire 29 patrol officers, one detective, six sergeants, and one lieutenant, raising its complement of sworn officers from 77 to 114.

» READ MORE: Temple pledges to boost police patrol officers by 58% over five years following staffing study

“That is my number one, two and three goal,” he said during an interview this week. “That is the cornerstone of the whole Ramsey report and getting the Ramsey report fully implemented is my goal.”

The university currently has 76 sworn officers, down one from December when the officer staffing study results were announced, Griffin said.

The school hired four officers this spring, a lieutenant and a detective, and four candidates are currently in the police officer academy, she said. But other officers have left, including one who went back to military service, another to an agency and another who left policing.

“This is a very challenging market,” said Griffin, 49. “There’s not a lot of people who want to go into this career.”

» READ MORE: Temple president John Fry sees development along Broad Street as another step in improving safety

Temple has been working for several years to attract more officers, including increasing salaries and benefits, adding signing and retention bonuses and higher contributions to retirement accounts, and hiring an associate director to focus solely on hiring, recruitment, retention, and training. The department also moved to 12-hour shifts to give officers more days off.

Members of the Temple University Police Association, the officers union, in a social media post in December 2024, said the department had lost more than 50 officers since 2022.

» READ MORE: Temple says violent crime in its patrol zone is down, while it announces next safety steps

“It’s a hard road,” Fry said this week, “but we’re on that hard road, and we’re not going to stop until we achieve the numbers that we want to achieve. I fully expect there’ll be moments when we’re three or four up and then all of a sudden, we get sacked and we have to start again. We just keep going.”

Griffin said the university has rewritten its hiring and recruitment policies and have employees dedicated to those jobs.

“We are really working hard to attract great people,” she said.

The school also has made a plethora of safety upgrades including more foot patrols and security cameras and increased technology in the communications center. The university under Griffin also implemented recommendations made by a university violence reduction task force and improved relationships with other law enforcement agencies, Fry said in a message to the campus about Griffin’s departure. She also helped “to build trust” and “reinforce a broader understanding” of public safety, he said.

“Her efforts sharpened operational readiness while supporting a culture centered on wellness, professionalism and excellence,” Fry said.

Temple continues to face community safety issues. In April, a Temple student was chased into the lobby of the school’s Morgan Hall residence hall and attacked by a group of juveniles.

Asked if it was her decision to leave, Griffin said during a Zoom interview also attended by Fry: ”There’s a time frame for these jobs. I think you always want to leave when you are kind of at your height.

“There’s a lot of things that go into these decisions. I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Fry said he talked to Griffin at the end of “a very long and busy year.”

“I think we looked at all that had been accomplished, and she said ‘you know, I could probably now use an opportunity for thinking about what’s next in a transition,’” he said. “And I respected that.

“I’ve been through this before with other public safety leaders... These are punishing jobs.”

» READ MORE: This 50-year-old left a higher-paying job to fulfill his dream and become a Temple police officer

Fry credited Griffin with the “monumental” task of implementing all the Ramsey recommendations.

“She’s left everything on the court here,” he said.

Griffin declined to discuss what she planned to do next, but noted her role on national law enforcement and university boards and anticipated there will be many opportunities.

She said she was grateful for the “amazing team” she had and their support along the way.

“I’m just looking forward to the transition and helping the next person,” she said.