The University of Chicago Crime Lab's Policing Leadership Academy tackles some serious topics like how to make data-driven decisions or how to help officers handle on-the-job trauma. But for one day in the five-month course that aims to change the culture of policing and improve community connections, captains from around the U.S. learn the art of improv with teachers from Chicago's storied Second City improv theatre. So far, about 130 police leaders from about 70 departments including tribal police departments and even a police inspector from Toronto have participated. Capt. Louis Higginson with the Philadelphia Police Department said the one of the key lessons from the improv class is trying to be a better listener, reserving judgment and fully listening. When he returned home, Higginson applied his skills taken from the class on his capstone project to reduce property crimes in his district. He found that the academy provided a much broader training than the two weeks of police job training he got before being promoted to captain a little more than a year ago. The job, he describes, as both demanding and challenging. Crime Lab researchers found that district and precinct captains have the largest potential impact on their colleagues, despite often receiving little leadership training for the job. A precinct could have high marks for morale, community relationships or making a dent in crime numbers, but if the captain changes, those gains could plummet, researchers found, even if the community, the officers and everything else stayed the same.