Prospective Members
Students interested in becoming a member of Stockton EMS should read the information below to understand what is expected of them and what they can expect after applying and interviewing. Please direct any questions to stocktonems@stockton.edu.
Requirements of Membership
- All members must be current students of Stockton University.
- Members must maintain a 2.5 or higher GPA.
- Each month, all members are required to staff three shifts (any combination of duty crews and/or event standbys) or a total of eight hours on duty—whichever comes first.
- Members must attend the monthly general meetings in order to remain in good standing.
Two unexcused absences from general meetings in a semester will result in removal
from the organization.
- The general meeting requirement will be waived if you have a conflicting class schedule or an urgent matter to which you must attend as long as you notify the executive board of the absence through email.
- Members must follow all procedures in the Standard Operating Procedures and Bylaws, which are made readily available to all members for reference.
All applicants are expected to be able to meet these requirements should they be accepted.
Path Towards Membership
The following are the steps towards becoming a member with Stockton EMS. Each must be completed in order to become a member. Once completed, you will be given the rank of "Probationary Member," i.e., a member in training.
The application process for Stockton EMS begins in the first month of each semester. The application will be available until about four weeks into a semester, so that there is adequate time for any prospective members to sign up.
Note: We will not be able to accept applications from EMTs who are seniors with fewer than 3 semesters remaining at Stockton or non-EMTs who are juniors or seniors with fewer than 5 semesters remaining at Stockton at the time of applying due to the amount of time that it takes to get a background check and to be trained in our organizational procedures and practices.
At the end of the four months, the applicants will be sent a poll to sign up for a time to interview. The interview sessions will occur during the fifth or sixth week of school. During interviews, applicants will be asked about their experience with EMS, among other things, and will have a chance to meet with the officers and ask any questions they may have.
While interviews are necessary for membership, they're nothing to worry about. Our interviews are informal, and the goal is for us to get to know all of the applicants better, so that we can make the best decision possible.
We love answering any questions applicants have about the organization, so please feel free to come to the interview with any questions you have. At the end of the interview, we have a time for you to ask any questions or make any comments, and we highly recommend doing so.
Note: We may not be able to offer interviews to all applicants due to the logistical technicalities associated with scheduling time to interview an especially large applicant pool.
Once all interviews have been completed, the executive board will convene to decide which applicants will be the best fit for the organization. Applicants will receive an email with the executive board’s decision. Applicants that the executive board determines to be the best fit for the organization will receive an offer of membership in their emails, which must be accepted by the applicants in order to become a member.
Regrettably, we cannot accept every application we receive, so the decision process will be competitive (relative to the number of applicants) and based on experience and the interview session.
Receiving and/or accepting a membership offer doesn't make an applicant a member; membership is contingent on successfully completing all of these five steps.
If an applicant is offered a membership with Stockton EMS, he or she must accept the offer by filling out and returning the Onboarding Packet that is sent in the email with the membership offer to the dispatcher at the Police Department. These packets will be handed over to the Emergency Management Coordinator for processing.
By not turning in the Onboarding Packet, an applicant is rejecting the offer of membership and will not continue in the membership process.
The final step in the membership process is undergoing a background check and fingerprinting.
The background check and fingerprinting are both conducted by the Stockton Police Department. The background check paper is included in the Onboarding Packet, so there's no additional paperwork. The background check is conducted to make sure that applicants have no serious criminal offenses that would make them ineligible for membership.
Fingerprinting is done by a police officer at the Stockton Police Department. This is mandatory for working within the Police station, which is where most of our equipment is located.
Both of these are mandatory and must be done for an applicant to be made a member of Stockton EMS.
Beyond the Background Check
From Acceptance to Active Member
Once you've completed the steps above and your background check comes back negative for any disqualifying offenses, you will become an official member with the rank of Probationary Member. Probationary Members are members in training. Training is overseen by the Training Sergeant, but any officer on the Executive Board or a Field Training Officer (FTO) can train members.
As a probationary member, your goal is to complete your training to be promoted to the rank of Active Member, which means that you can vote at meetings and be elected for executive board positions. Active members also no longer require supervision from an officer or FTO while on duty. The steps below will give you an idea of what to expect once you become a member.
The steps from a Probationary Member to an Active Member are as follows:
As stated before, once you get fingerprinted and pass your background check, you will be made a Probationary Member.
You will receive a Letter of Appointment from the Emergency Management Coordinator. Print it out, sign your name, scan it, and email it back to the EMC as soon as possible.
When you sign up for an event standby or duty crew shift as a Probationary Member, an officer or FTO will be added to that shift if one is not on the shift already. The officer or FTO will walk you through our training process which will help you get used to how we operate.
Once you staff two shifts, you qualify to take the Active Member Clearing. The Training Sergeant will reach out to you to see if you would like to attempt the clearing or if you would like to wait and be trained further.
When you accept the offer to go through Active Member Clearing, the Training Sergeant will meet with you and test you on what was covered in the training. If you pass that, you will be promoted to an Active Member.
Should you fail the Active Member Clearing, you will be required to staff one more shift for training. After being trained again, you will be allowed to retry the Clearing.
