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Campus Security

Kevin_Raven

First a long story, then a question for smogoners who are in college at the end.

As you probably remember, there was a major shooting last April at my University, Virginia Tech. Because of this, the University has been implementing several additional security measures.
First, immediately after the attack, students were required to swipe student ID's in order to enter any residence hall, 24 hours a day.
Now, as I just learned yesterday, this policy will continue throughout this year, and in addition, several new card readers are being installed in doors in our dorm building. What makes this really bad, though, is that they are installing 8 new card readers on a building with 6 entrances, 4 of which already have card readers, while the other two are locked anyway. This means that to simply go from one floor of our building to another, you will need to swipe a card. To go visit your friend, or study in the study lounge, you need your card. If you forget your card when you go to do your laundry, you're locked out of your room.

Immediately after we heard this, our dorm's e-mail forum was in an uproar with people complaining about how this will section off the community in our dorm, how our movements are being tracked from one floor to another, and how all of the money (each reader is thousands of dollars) is not really helping us to be safe, just a bunch of sound and fury to keep parents and politicians happy (most of the shootings, if you'll recall, happened in an academic building, which will not be locked down at all).

My question, for those of you who are in college, what kind of security do you go through on your campus? It would be helpful to know if our dorms have just had really lax security all this time, and we're just now catching up, or are we really being screwed with several over-protective layers of security compared to other campuses?
 
My freshman year at RIT (2001-2) was pretty simple. You could walk into any dorm building at any time of day, no problem. But after a rash of thefts (because dumbasses left their rooms unlocked when they went to class), the next year they locked all the outer doors to the dorm buildings, so that you needed a key to get into each building. Of course, if you didn't live in the dorms anymore (1% of non-freshman live in the dorms), it was nearly impossible to get into one to visit friends after about 7pm unless they came down to let you in.

I have since graduated, but it's become even harder to enter most of the dorms since then.
 
At Maryland, you can't enter anyone else's dorms with your ID card has to let you in. There's always the worry of letting some thug in.

You can't keep the door open, b/c then a loud alarm goes off :(

There are cops everywhere. Many of the crimes happen off campus actually.

EDIT: you need the cards to get into the building, a key to open the door to your room.
 
card to get in some buildings, main ones are open. requires a dorm key to get on the girls floors.
 
wow, our security is lax, <.< At least in the dorm I was in.

Umm, key to get in the building, we weren't "supposed" to leave the door propped, *coughs* but let's just say there's a lot of things we weren't supposed to do. :)

generally we left the back entrance to the dorm propped open, and once you're inside the dorm you have access to pretty much everything (except for the girls bathrooms, for those you still needed a key).
 
Bryant was pretty lax. We had gated security which generally just waved you in and only stopped you after 5 PM, dorms were all open until 11 PM where you needed your FOB to get into your dorm (and only your dorm unless a friend let you in).

Personally I think what's going on at VTech according to your account is ridiculous. People didn't get shot because there wern't keycards everywhere, people got shot because the same idiotic administration that is now trying to save face by implementing "commonsense security measures" let in a guy who had a mental disorder that they didn't address.

The Crisis Cycle have 4 phases:

1. Lull - security measures in place, nothing happens.
2. Lax - security dwindles due to above.
3. Crisis - situation boils over due to above
4. Overreation - in a desperate attempt to save face, administrators implement loads of new security measures that generally have nothing to do with the root cause of the crisis, to the annoyance of everyone.

Repeat.
 
DK's interpretation is pretty accurate. Now there's talk on the forum of bricking in certain doors to restrict access, which is completely ridiculous. The main complication in our case is that the first floor of our dorm is a university office, so it has to be unlocked from 9-5, while residential areas need to be locked all day. I've also heard that we're going to have an increased police presence who will walk around warning people (mostly impressionable freshmen) who let unauthorized people 'tailgate' into card-access doors.
 
I commute to a California State University. Don't know about the dorms. As far as i can remember, I've nver had to swipe my ID card for anything. Anything. Not for the library, or the student union. Of course I've only been to the library once, and that was pre-April 16, so I don't know if they beefed up security there or not.
 
Kevin_Raven said:
DK's interpretation is pretty accurate. Now there's talk on the forum of bricking in certain doors to restrict access, which is completely ridiculous. The main complication in our case is that the first floor of our dorm is a university office, so it has to be unlocked from 9-5, while residential areas need to be locked all day. I've also heard that we're going to have an increased police presence who will walk around warning people (mostly impressionable freshmen) who let unauthorized people 'tailgate' into card-access doors.
Click to expand...

I am a little confused, so cops will be walking around looking for people who keep the door open for friends? Complete Strangers? B/C here at maryland it's usually the rule that your friend calls you, tells who (as in friend+friend's friends) is here, and then you come down to open the door for them.
 
At KSU, I had a physical key to get into the building and a card key to get into my room. Nothing too serious.

Locking down the campus like that isn't going to prevent future issues. If anything, it may end up causing more issues.

Deck Knight said:
Personally I think what's going on at VTech according to your account is ridiculous. People didn't get shot because there wern't keycards everywhere, people got shot because the same idiotic administration that is now trying to save face by implementing "commonsense security measures" let in a guy who had a mental disorder that they didn't address.
Click to expand...
I agree with this 100%.
 
blackshellbowser said:
I am a little confused, so cops will be walking around looking for people who keep the door open for friends? Complete Strangers? B/C here at maryland it's usually the rule that your friend calls you, tells who (as in friend+friend's friends) is here, and then you come down to open the door for them.
Click to expand...

I think it only applies to complete strangers following you into a building, my RA seemed a little unsure about it, but there will be VT police officers handing out 'Got Ya' tickets in person to people who allow others to tailgate into buildings (they used to give these to people who left doors unlocked or property unattended). I suspect that will mostly be the first few weeks, though, just to let everyone know they're serious.
 
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