University students host mock crime scene
More than 60 high school students gathered at Waynesburg University on Saturday, Nov. 12, to take part in the school’s Mock Crime Scene.
According to Michael Cipoletti, assistant professor of forensic science, it was perhaps the most well-attended department event since he began at the university.
“It was the most students we had in recent memory, maybe in all my memory since I’ve been here, and I’ve been here since 2008,” said Cipoletti. “We had 64 high school students, and that’s a lot of students to put into a crime scene, even when you split them up four ways, but I thought it went well. Our students did an excellent job of getting them organized and keeping them on task.”
Waynesburg students volunteered to help with the event and answer any questions the high schoolers had.
The event was held in two sessions-a morning and an afternoon.
For the morning session, students broke into four groups and attended one of four workshops where an expert in a specific field attempted to teach as much as they could in a 40-minute window.
After the workshop was completed, the students rotated.
Experts in the workshops discussed topics such as finger prints, computer security and digital forensics, questioned documents and blood analysis.
After a break for lunch, the students participated in the afternoon session, which was the mock crime scene.
Cipoletti noted that the event is very much a recruiting tool for the university, and serves an educational purpose for prospective students who are interested in the array of fields represented at the Mock Crime Scene.
“It’s a recruiting tool for that, to get them here and let them meet our students and see our facilities,” said Cipoletti. “But the other thing we’re trying to accomplish is trying to teach them a little bit about the realities of the fields they’re interested in.”
This recruiting tactic worked for current senior criminal justice major, Tyler Miller, as he found out about Waynesburg while taking a forensic science class in high school.
“I signed up for it, came out here and I loved it; it was so much fun,” said Miller. “It wasn’t just another one of those things where you sat in a classroom for several hours, and you learned about the topics and never got to apply them. They had you get right down to business, you were in charge of the scene, you were the people finding evidence, you were the people investigating what had happened, talking to witnesses, and that was super cool to be a part of.”
Miller noted that it was the three-hour recruiting job done by Cipoletti after the fact that cemented his decision to go to Waynesburg. He laid out all aspects of the program to Miller and his mother, and from there, he was sold.
“From that point, I was like, ‘This is really awesome,'” said Miller. “Then I applied and managed to come to Waynesburg, so that was really key aspect of why I was initially drawn to Waynesburg was the mock crime scene.”
However, Cipoletti highlighted that the event goes beyond bringing prospective students only to the criminal justice and forensic science fields at Waynesburg. He noted that students get a feel for the entire university during these events, and they help brings students to the school in a more general sense.
“That’s the thing; it doesn’t just work for us, telling them about our programs and getting them introduced to our staff and students,” he said. “It works for admissions because every student that comes through gets an admissions packet. Even if, throughout the course of the day, they decide that criminal justice or forensic science isn’t for them, they still get introduced to the university.”