Police officers will be in class Tuesday.

Instead of giving instructions they will be taking them at the first meeting of the Leading Edge, a yearlong program that trains supervisors.

The program is labeled for supervisors, but it doesn’t have to say that on the participant’s business card. Students, continuing education faculty and university police officers have all attended the program.

Each class has 30 seats, which are open to all members of the university. This year there are still seven open seats in a program that has historically been full.

This drop in attendance is unsurprising to Bowman.

The Leading Edge is the brainchild of Sandra Bowman who is the training administrator, who began the program only four months after her arrival at Eastern. The program is now in its sixth year.

The transition to the Banner computer system has been eating up faculty and staff members’ time, and has made it impossible for them to commit, she said.

The Leading Edge program requires 48 total hours, spread across 12 sessions throughout the year.

Students have nine required sessions and then must attend at least three of the seven elective sessions.

The reason for the extended, yearlong program is to allow the students to network, Bowman said.

“We could have this done in six days, but that’s not the point,” she said.

Because people come from a wide variety of places on the university they might not have much contact in a normal day.

“One of the greatest benefits was getting to know others in the university that I typically didn’t have interaction with,” said Eric Davidson, a Health Service employee.

The program has very little financial drain on the university, since the speakers are almost entirely faculty or staff members with experience pertinent to the program.

Bowman has not had to pay any of these faculty and staff members to speak and her materials cost was low.

This year’s class is the first that will be taught with WebCT instead of a physical textbook. The book that Bowman used in past programs went out of print.

Bowman said she used the book as a teaching aid instead of relying on it as the core of the class.

Bowman is unable to require anyone to attend the class, making it largely voluntary. This is different for some of the students, who were required to attend the program by their individual supervisors.

“I can sit there and tell them what a great program it is, but you’d expect me to say that,” Bowman said.

She feels the class has value because leaders who attended past programs support it by sending their staff to future Leading Edge programs.

Davidson said he has encouraged other members of the Health Service staff to attend the program.

Anyone interested in joining the program should contact Sandra Bowman at 581-6402.