Since joining Kirkwood Community College in 2018, Landon Einck has become a familiar and trusted presence on campus. His office is in Iowa Hall, Room 113, but he is often seen around campus and visiting classrooms. Known for his positive, welcoming attitude, Einck recently took time to answer a few questions about his role and what it means to serve the college as a school resource officer.
What’s your role here at Kirkwood?
I’ve been here at the college for about eight years, and honestly my role is different every day. I’m here for the students, first and foremost. I help them with everything from going to classrooms to speaking to classrooms about either safety on and off the campus. I also deal with roommate concerns, different things like that. And if I’m not doing that stuff, I’m either walking around, talking with people, or driving around just kind of on patrol.
How did you get into this role as the officer at Kirkwood?
I started patrol in 2010, and then, in about 2017, I interviewed for a different role at a high school, and I didn’t get it. Since I came in second in that interview process and the officer who was currently here had to leave for a few months, they offered me to come out here and take his place. So that’s where it started. I came out here and did that for a couple of months, and then when the position became fully available, I applied. That was 2018, and Ihave been here ever since.
What is your favorite part of being at Kirkwood?
Definitely the relationships. The relationships with the students are great, but the staff, you know, I’ve grown to love the staff out here that I work with, and it’s been a really cool thing just to see how much the Dean of Students Office truly cares for the students. It’s pretty neat to see, especially what goes on behind the scenes. A lot of them become family friends. I look forward to being here for quite a while.
What advice would you give someone looking to go into the criminal justice field?
I would say the best advice for people who are not just going into criminal justice but are truly wanting to be a police officer or in that line of work is they should do ride-alongs. That’s huge for anybody who wants to go into that type of profession. And when I talk to the classes, it’s about doing ride-alongs to experience, obviously, the exciting parts of the job but also the boredom. That’s usually what I highly encourage kids to do.
Is there anything you would like students to know?
Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of students have a stigma with the police. I’m just a regular person, and, you know, I love interacting with the students, kids and faculty. A lot of them are scared. Students are scared to come up here, speak and interact with me.
But there are times when I have students who do come up here. Some students come up here just to eat lunch with me, based on the relationships that we’ve made in the past and stuff.
So, I think once they realize that it’s easy to come up here and speak, it’s just a better way to break down that barrier for some students who don’t necessarily see me as, you know, just a person. They see the uniform and the stigmas to that, and that’s hard to break sometimes.
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