Michael Bunker, associate vice president and chief of campus safety and emergency management services for Syracuse University’s Department of Public Safety (SU DPS), has been named a director-at-large for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) Board of Directors.

IACLEA is the largest professional association devoted to excellence in campus public safety and law enforcement. IACLEA members are police chiefs, public safety directors, law enforcement officers and security personnel at higher education institutions who are responsible for protecting millions of students worldwide. The IACLEA Board of Directors is the elected governing body of the association, consisting of four officers, eight regional directors, three directors-at-large, and the executive director, who serves as an ex-officio member.

Bunker’s time at SU DPS has been defined by a deliberate focus on building trust, both within the department and across the broader community.

“Since arriving at Syracuse, I’ve focused on building a department that officers are proud to serve in and that the community trusts,” says Bunker. “We finalized a long-overdue MOU with Syracuse Police Department (SPD), stood up a joint command center with SPD and county partners and negotiated a five-year contract that delivered meaningful pay increases for our officers.”

Bunker’s distinguished career includes serving in the U.S. Coast Guard and leadership roles with the University of Denver, the Georgetown University Police Department, and the Campus Public Safety Institute, along with earlier positions at other police departments. It is a career built on service, one that Bunker says prepared him well for this new responsibility.

“Being elected to the IACLEA board as a director-at-large is a chance to bring the perspective of a large, urban campus department to a national conversation about the future of our profession. I want to make sure departments like ours have a voice in shaping best practices and policy at the national level,” says Bunker. “It’s also personal. My 14 years in the Coast Guard shaped how I think about leadership: service before self, mission focus and taking care of the people under your command. Serving on this board is a continuation of that same commitment, just on a bigger stage.”