Ohio State police seeking new leadership as chief moves on

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- As Ohio State University begins the 2024-2025 academic year, it's seeking a new leader for its police division.

Chief Kimberly Spears-McNatt has been chief of the OSU Police Division since 2018. In total, she's worked at the division for 30 years. Her time at OSU dates back even further to when she graduated from OSU in 1993, then started working for OSUPD in 1994. She was the division's first female chief of police.

"I literally have grown up on this campus. My 20s, 30s, 40s, now 50s, it's bittersweet, a lot of memories," Spears-McNatt said. "I'm a Buckeye, I'll be a Buckeye for life, but it's just a lot of great memories."

Spears-McNatt said some of the accomplishments she's most proud of with OSUPD include the accreditation level achieved by the division, increasing its diversity, and the relationships she's built with students.

“I've always had a good working relationship with all our students, especially our undergraduate student government and at any given time I can walk across campus and they don't see the chief, they just saw Kimberly, and that's all I ever asked for," Spears-McNatt said.

She is going to be the Associate Vice President of Public Safety at Clemson University. Monica Moll, Associate Vice President of the Department of Public Safety at OSU, will serve as interim chief until a new one is hired.

"We’re doing everything we can to keep our university community safe," Moll said. "Not just our students but our faculty and staff and we’re going to continue with all the same partnerships we’ve established with city officials and the Columbus Division of Police."

Moll said the division's two deputy chiefs will be helping her during the interim period. She said she expects hiring a new chief to take a few months and hopes the process is completed by the end of the semester.

"My number one goal is to get a police chief that's as good as Kimberly Spears-McNatt," Moll said. "That might be hard to do but I want to get a police chief for OSUPD that understands the community like she did, cares about what their concerns are, has an open door for community concerns is transparent, ethical, hard worker."