This week, more than 20 police professionals from across Massachusetts are on the Fitchburg State University campus for the 2nd annual Next Generation Leadership Summit for Police Professionals. The summit runs through Thursday.
 
The summit, presented by Fitchburg State in collaboration with the Fitchburg and Harvard police departments, will introduce police professionals to skills and tools that will lead to new perspectives on leadership in their profession.

Summit registrants come from communities including Amherst, Chelmsford, Fitchburg, Leominster, Lunenburg, Mashpee, Natick, Newburyport, Wayland, Wellesley and Whitman, as well as several college and university campus police officers.

Topics to be covered in the seminars include building upon organizational strengths, managing change, effective communication and how to handle workplace conflict. Attendees will also travel to Boston this week to meet with Attorney General Martha Coakley and there will be an introduction on the assessment center process used in many departments to select candidates for promotion.

On Monday, Emmy-winning filmmaker Melanie Perkins, a 1991 graduate of Fitchburg State, screened her Emmy-winning documentary “Have You Seen Andy?” and discussed the case with the visiting police officers. The film chronicles the investigation into the disappearance of 10-year-old Andy Puglisi of Lawrence in 1976. Puglisi was a childhood friend of Perkins and no one was ever charged in his disappearance.

“What we do today affects us 30 years from now,” Perkins said, encouraging the officers to be mindful of the impact their decisions can have long after an investigation is concluded.

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