Five phones ringing off the hook, alarms buzzing on four different computers and a line of students out the door; this is just a typical day in the life of a campus dispatcher.

Police dispatchers Jan Schaller and Steve Shaner, who have both been working with the University police for four years, said they have gotten used to the hectic and fast paced workplace over the years and even grown to love it.

On any given day the police dispatchers deal with a number of problems ranging from 911 calls, to fire alarms, to leaky pipes in Olscamp. Schaller, who worked as a dispatcher with the city of Bowling Green for 14 years, said that the University is much more service-oriented than the city.

The dispatch center, which is located next to the parking and traffic office in Commons, is a sight to see. Post-it notes and clipboards and pieces of paper wallpaper the office walls. Computer screens are scattered across the table space and a video monitoring system hangs in the corner, allowing the dispatchers to see everything happening on campus. Schaller and Shaner truly are the eyes and ears of the University, Shaner said.

Most of the time there is only one dispatcher working on a shift, so every dispatcher needs to understand how to turn the small dispatch room into an efficient working machine, Schaller said.

“We have a system and it works for us,” Shaner said.

After 6 o’clock the dispatchers are also responsible for campus maintenance in addition to their regular duties.

“We are the heart of the University,” Shaner said.

Amongst the computer screens and the video monitors and camera feeds, the two most important pieces of equipment are still the phone and the radio, Schaller said. The phone, which is constantly lighting up with calls from people around campus, does not always ring with emergency calls.

She has gotten calls from little kids, prank calls and people who just want to talk with somebody. Schaller said that sometimes it can be frustrating when calls tie up the line that are not police-related.

“I get so many calls like ‘I found a duck what do I do?’ and ‘where is the dance?'” Schaller said. “It can be aggravating because these are not necessarily calls that should go to us, they should go to some sort of reception area.”

Schaller, who has become a pro at multi-tasking over the years, said the main thing to do in the dispatch field is to prioritize.

“Time is everything in this place,” Schaller said. “And a dispatcher is one of the most important people in the University. We know everything an officer does and we are responsible for knowing exactly where they are at all times. That’s a big job.”

In an actual emergency a dispatcher is getting information out of the person who called in, ordering an ambulance and fire truck, finding out where the police officers are on campus and sending them to the scene and keeping a detailed log for the records.

It is easy to become overwhelmed by the job, Shaner said.

Shaner, who also works as a volunteer firefighter, is used to a stressful workplace, but he admits when an emergency call comes in his heart still races a little bit.

“This is a very stressful job,” Shaner said. “There is stress everyday. You just have to learn to work through the stress.”

A dispatcher is often forgotten when people think of law enforcement, Schaller said, but what they do is in many ways the coal that burns the fire of the whole system. If they do their job right nobody will know they are there, but if they do it wrong everybody will know, Officer Allison Schmitt said.

“We appreciate everything the officers do, so often they are underappreciated, and it is unfortunate.” Schmitt said. “They are so incredibly important and our first line of defense, we would be running around not knowing anything without them.”