Chief Calvin Sellers stands in the office he has worked in for 25 years.
PHOTO BY: KAYLA BEATTY
After 25 years of working at the University Police Department, Chief Calvin Sellers will say goodbye on May 31.
The 62-year-old Sellers has dedicated 30 years, almost half of his life, to working in police departments, the majority of which has been at Ole Miss.
Sellers said he didn’t always know law enforcement was where he belonged. Before joining force, he was a jack-of-all-trades. He owned an insurance business and even worked as a disc jockey at a local radio station.
“I did a lot of jobs before this,” Sellers said. “My heart wasn’t in that. It just wasn’t what I wanted to do.”
In 1984, Sellers went on a job search in Water Valley.
“Actually, when I got hired as law enforcement, I was trying to get a job as a fireman,” Sellers said. “There weren’t any jobs open for firemen, but there were for policemen. So they said ‘What about this?’ and I said ‘Okay, I’ll try that.’”
Little did he know it would be the career to which he would commit the rest of his working life.
Growing up, Sellers’ father was a Baptist preacher and worked in education. Ole Miss was financially out of his family’s limits, making it impossible for him to get his degree here.
“I went to Northwest for a year then I got married, worked, had a baby and that was kind of the end of that,” Sellers said.
A new adventure started in 1986 when Sellers decided to come work for the police department at Ole Miss. Working at the police department meant he was able to take two free classes per semester at the university.
Working late night shifts from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. in the morning and trying to balance class and sleep during the day proved to be a struggle for Sellers.
“If you think about it, if you’re only taking one class a semester it takes a long time to get a degree,” Sellers laughed. “I got tired. It got to a point when I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and I just quit.”
Eventually, his patrol shift was changed from night to afternoon.
“The chief that was here, Mike Stewart, really pushed us to go to class and go to school. When I went to the afternoon shift, the first thing he asked me was, ‘You going to get back in class?’”
Sellers responded by planning out his work and school schedule, ensuring time for classes.
“I always wanted to get a degree; I always wanted to finish my education,” Sellers said, and he did just that in 1998.
While getting his degree, Sellers found that, despite having the same job title he did in Water Valley, working at Ole Miss was very different. The goals of working for a city and working for a college campus differ, according to Sellers.
“Our purpose is different,” Sellers said. “Our goal is not to see how many people we can arrest. It’s not to see how many tickets we can write. Our goal is to make this the safest place it can possibly be. We reach those goals in a different way.”
While working at Ole Miss, Sellers climbed through the ranks from patrolman to lieutenant to patrol captain. He said, when he was first here, UPD didn’t have an assistant chief, but he carried the role despite the lack of title.
A couple years after getting his degree and serving in different positions within the department, Sellers took another opportunity. That opportunity would take him to Columbus to work for Mississippi University for Women.
“They had an opening for Police Chief at MUW,” said Sellers. “Well, I wanted to stay in campus law enforcement; I had gotten to where I really liked it. That was kind of my place. I enjoyed my time at The W, I did.”
Sellers worked at MUW for eight years until Ole Miss had an opening for the chief of police position.
“I applied and was just really, really, really lucky and fortunate to get to come back. You know, to get to come back home and finish my career at Ole Miss.”
Since Sellers’ return to campus on July 1, 2008, many things have happened, both good and bad.
While Chancellor Dan Jones commented that Chief Sellers has led the security efforts for Ole Miss to be recognized as the safest campus in the SEC and one of the safest campuses in the nation, Sellers remains humble.
“I don’t have any personal accomplishments,” Sellers said. “I’ve not really won any personal awards, or that sort of stuff, but our department, I think, has done great things.”
During Sellers’ time at Ole Miss, UPD has worked together to intensify safety efforts and become state accredited.
Sellers said getting the department accredited was like trying to eat an elephant; you have to go about it one piece at a time.
“When you first get it and you lay it out and look at all of this stuff that they’re asking you to do, and you’re like, ‘Whew. How do we do this?’” Sellers said. “Well, you do it one page at a time. It took a long time, but I’m proud of that.”
UPD is now a Mississippi state certified law enforcement agency, but Sellers doesn’t want the work to stop there.
“It’s not going to happen before I’m gone, but this will be a nationally accredited police department, which is outstanding,” Sellers said.
Sellers and his team have made Ole Miss a safe place to be. Another leader working closely with Sellers within the department is Assistant Chief of Police Ray Hawkins.
Hawkins said Sellers has been a strong leader.
“He’s a common sense type of guy,” Hawkins said. “He has been a great chief, a great person. He’s very knowledgeable and helped to create a very open working environment. People feel comfortable doing what they do.”
The UPD team has helped conduct successful events, like the 2008 Presidential Debate and controlled record-breaking crowds at this past year’s football games. Some things, however can’t be planned for.
“You know, there are things that just break your heart,” Sellers said. “We know that starting this year, before the year is over we’re going to have a certain number of students that are going to be killed. They’re going to die in car wrecks. They’re going to die in tragic accidents.”
Sellers said the department can prepare for most things like concerts, ballgames, commencement and other events. They cannot plan for incidents like last year’s vandalism of the James Meredith statue or the loss of an Ole Miss community member.
No matter the circumstance, Sellers has had his team of officers with him. He said they’ll be one of the things he’ll miss most about his job after he retires.
“We’ve got people here with so many different talents, I’m just lucky enough to get to work with them,” Sellers said. “All the way down to the last person hired here, we have great people that work for UPD, we do.”
In his 25 non-consecutive years on campus, Sellers has served under many different administrators, including Chancellor Robert C. Khayat, Chief of Staff to the Chancellor Andrew Mullins and Vice Chancellor of University Relations Gloria Dodwell Kellum.
“Those three people, Dr. Khayat, Andy Mullins and Gloria Kellum, had such an influence in my life, and they’re all three Ole Miss people,” Sellers said.
Like the university administration, the office of UPD chief must also change hands.
Sellers said that although he may be retiring, the job of law enforcement is never done.
“I think that we, as a department, have made Ole Miss a safe place to be. We’ve made it a safe place to live and to work and to study. Because you’ve reached that level, you can’t stop. If you do, it’s going to go backwards,” Sellers said. “You never reach a spot in police work where you can just say ‘Okay, everything’s done. Everything’s good, we don’t have to do anything different.’ We always have to be looking for new and better ways to do what we do.”
Sellers said he does not know who his successor might be. He said it could be an outside person or someone from within the department. He noted that no matter what, it’s going to be a change.
“I love Ole Miss,” Sellers said, a soft smile creeping onto his face. “I hope whoever comes in and gets this job gets the same support and feels the love I have felt from Ole Miss, from her students and faculty.”
