Unlike his predecessor Paul E. "no waves" Johnson, Harvard University Police Chief Francis D. "Bud" Riley has stirred up the surf during his first five years at the helm.

A year and a half after launching a controversial internal restructuring, Riley has taken the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) from a detached, allegedly racially insensitive organization, to one admired by students and administrators.

At the start of his tenure at Harvard, Riley says he knew what he wanted to fix within HUPD.

Johnson, his predecessor, ran a department that didn't relate well with the community and had its share of internal disagreements--once resulting in a fistfight--between staff members.

Riley says the main cause of those problems was poor communication on the part of HUPD.

"One thing I discovered was that there was a lack of knowledge on the part of the community and the police as to the role of the police department in the academic community," says Riley.

And, he says, Harvard is clearly an institution that needs community policing. His objective was to create an environment with officers on foot getting to know students rather than officers in patrol cars aloof from the campus.