Police Chief Ed Denmark hands out watermelon at a barbecue for town employees last July. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

“Teaching is my passion,” he said. That’s not an unusual statement to hear from a professional educator, but those are the words of Harvard’s police chief, Ed Denmark.

In addition to his full-time job in Harvard, Denmark works as a teacher, facilitator, and advisor at the Boylston Regional Police Academy, at the University of Phoenix, and at Fitchburg State College, where he received his master’s degree in criminal justice.

Learning seems to be a passion, too. Denmark is about two years into studying for a doctor of arts degree in leadership at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. Students in the program meet once a month on Saturday and Sunday and keep in contact using the Internet.

Denmark is not only a student in the program, but a teacher, as well. He co-teaches “Leadership and the Creative Imagination,” showing how television, film, and books shape leadership and how people use those media to influence others.

Although his dissertation topic keeps changing, he says, he may focus on developing an alternative to the quasi-military structure police departments use. Denmark points out that the structure used now is the same as that which was laid out by Sir Robert Peel in London in the 1800s when, as home secretary for England, he created the Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard.

Part of his dissertation research includes finding and studying public or private organizations that have succeeded using less hierarchical structures. He believes that changes should affect rank structure, training, and internal processes.

Job satisfaction for police officers has not improved substantively even when municipalities spend more money on policing, he said, which means that police officers leave their jobs sooner than they would otherwise. Denmark cited a study done in 1968 that showed the average police job tenure as six years. A 2001 study showed no change. Not only does turnover cost money, he says, unhappy workers do not work as effectively as happy ones.

Another  “failure in leadership,” according to Denmark, is setting public expectations for crime control too high. “Law enforcement cannot make these society changes [that reduce crime],” he says. “The police do not control crime; they react to it.”

The way he got into his studies was through law enforcement, Denmark says, but leadership and the ability to influence behavior is important in all areas. He thinks leaders can be just as effective from the sidelines. He believes in “servant leadership,” and uses Gandhi as his example.

One of the reasons he likes being police chief in Harvard, he says, is because “if you try something, you get immediate feedback. You know if it works.” But being chief of police “is what I do, not who I am.” Asked about where his degree could take him, he says, “I could see a second career coming as a teacher. Everybody needs something that makes them happy.”