Police chief elected to Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police board

Debra Duncan, of Blacksburg, chief of the Virginia Tech Police Department, was elected to serve on the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police (VACP) 2004-2005 Executive Board at the VACP’s annual conference.

Duncan is the first female police chief and the first university police chief to serve on the executive board. She is a graduate of the foundation’s Professional Executive Leadership School and is known for her expertise in policing ethics.

After 21 years as a member of the High Point (N.C.) Police Department, Duncan was named Virginia Tech’s police chief in 2001. She graduated from the FBI’s National Academy in Quantico in 1997, and she completed the Senior Management Institute for Police through the Police Executive Research Forum in 2000. Duncan received her Advanced Law Enforcement Professional Certificate from the N.C. Department of Justice in 1989. She received her bachelor’s degree from Guilford College and a master’s degree from North Carolina A&T State University.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.