Mitch Ellicott couldn’t hide his excitement. The retired Sussex County Sheriff’s Department detective lieutenant flashed a beaming smile as he watched his youngest daughter, Hannah, prepare for her first day working for the Atlantic City Police Department.
“I’m very proud. I know she put a lot of work into it,” said the Fredon, New Jersey, native, wearing his uniform. “Trying to finish up doing all her tests and final exams. Trying to move things around with her classes and then to finish the police academy and the ACPD’s requirements. She kept her nose to the grindstone and got it done.”
Hannah is one of three Stockton University students who started work as Class II police officers in Atlantic City on July 1 as part of an expansion of the Stockton Atlantic City Summer Experience. She missed the last two weeks of the semester and rescheduled her finals in order to enter the Cape May County Police Academy for a seven-day-a-week, 12-hour-a-day, nine-week training program to become a Class II officer.
“It’s a great opportunity to work on the Boardwalk in the city’s Tourism District Unit,” said the senior criminal justice major. “I’m really excited to get started. I’m not nervous. It’s been a great experience and a great privilege, and I’m ready.”
The Stockton Atlantic City Summer Experience, also known as the Live-Work-Learn Program, has partnered with area businesses over the past five summers to provide students local employment, housing and career readiness training.
“It provides students with gainful employment and professional work experience. We can also introduce students to potential careers that they may not have necessarily thought were possible,” said Brian K. Jackson, Stockton’s vice president for Community Engagement. “For the employers, we offer a young, educated pool of students to fill many seasonal summer positions.”
Jackson said 24 employers, including several Atlantic City casinos and AtlantiCare, have participated in the program over the last five years. More than 1,000 students have received summer employment, and the program has generated $2 million in housing revenue for the university.
“This program leans strongly into our position as an Anchor Institution in southern New Jersey,” he said. “It allows us to grow our relationships with our employer partners, sometimes introducing them to our talented pool of students for the first time.”
Those introductions have led to continued employment for about 30% of students, Jackson said.
“Some of our students have even served as supervisors, managing dozens of employees,” he said. “These experiences greatly enhance student resumes.”
Elllicott, Ryan Rafter, of Kenilworth, and Josh Llancari, of Wildwood, are just three of the 366 in this summer’s program.
“I knew from a young age that I wanted to go into law enforcement,” said Rafter, who’s in his fourth year of Stockton’s 3+2 program to get his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice. “I was even saying to my friends how it’s like a childhood dream coming true. I’ve always wanted to do something like this.”
For Llancari, a junior Criminal Justice major, the opportunity to live in a Stockton residence hall right by the beach and Boardwalk was too good to pass up.
“It’s five minutes away from where I work. I’m not paying for it. You can’t beat that,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous, but I think it feels good to be nervous. I’m also glad and excited to be here.”
Having the Atlantic City Police Department join the Atlantic City Summer Experience has been in the planning stages since last summer, said Alex Marino, director of Academic Operations for Stockton’s Atlantic City campus. Marino worked with Atlantic City Police Chief James Sarkos, a 1999 Stockton graduate, and Jacquelyn Suarez, the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, to get financial support for the students.
Sarkos is extremely pleased with the results, and he hopes to expand it to more Stockton students in the future.
“We wanted to offer an opportunity where Stockton students can stay in Atlantic City in this beautiful dormitory on the Boardwalk and get real policing experience,” he said. “We think it’s something that’s very unique. I really appreciate the relationship we have with Stockton. I am a proud alum, and I’m just excited about the partnership and what the future has to offer.”
Stockton Criminal Justice Instructor Rick Mulvihill ’77 taught each of the three students and said Sarkos was a former student of his. Before he was an instructor at Stockton, Mulvihill spent 26 years in policing and started his career walking the same beat on the Boardwalk as the three students.
“We want to get more students involved and get this kind of experience earlier,” Mulvihill said. “It could mean this experience would change their mind and they may not want to do law enforcement. Or they may absolutely want to do law. That’s all part of the college process.”
Llancari hopes working this summer in Atlantic City will get him a foot in the door toward possibly a full-time job when he graduates in a couple of years. For Sarkos, that would be the ultimate benefit from the department’s participation in the Atlantic City Summer Experience.
“Most of our full-time officers start as Class IIs,” he said. “If they are interested in pursuing a full-time career with us once they graduate and get their degree, we would love them.”
