Convincing students to look out for their dorms’ safety is the key to keeping student residences safe, say students and officials from Northwestern and Georgetown University.
In the wake of Sept. 11, Georgetown officials reassessed the safety of campus residences and decided to instate a “lockdown” policy this fall that denies access to everyone but residents of any specific building.
If students want to enter a building where they do not live they must sign in with a student guard inside the main entrance. The guards are off duty in the evenings, requiring students to call someone in the building to gain access, according to Tom Donnelly, chief of staff for Georgetown University Student Association.
Although guards are present at Georgetown dorms during the day, NU dorms are guarded by security monitors only at night — from 8 p.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday and from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m Friday and Saturday.
NU also is implementing new safety measures this fall, including replacing roaming security monitors in a group of residential colleges with stationary monitors inside the main entrances of the residences.
Georgetown students are upset with the measures their university has taken because many dorms there house religious centers and music practice rooms that are now inaccessible to students who do not live in those buildings, said Beth Cooney, Health, Safety and Justice Advocacy Committee co-chairwoman for the student association.
“We see this policy as actually decreasing safety because it will lead to more students propping doors open,” Cooney said. “The best thing to do is to have more vigilant guards. There need to be more guards on duty; we need professional guards at each entrance in the evenings.”
But according to Virginia Koch, assistant director of Residential Life at NU, no matter how good a university’s policies or how vigilant the monitors, if a student wanted to allow someone into a university residence, he or she could.
“Part of it is residents taking responsibility, buying into the idea that safety is important,” Koch said. “The reason we have these policies is for everyone’s safety. They should feel a sense of responsibility that it is important to follow these policies.”
Lt. Nicholas Parashis of University Police said students allowing unauthorized people into dorms is a significant problem at NU.
According to Parashis, a woman wandered into Communications Residential College a little before 7 p.m. on Sept. 22. He said the woman lives at the North Shore Retirement Hotel and “she didn’t know who she was or where she was.”
Although the woman apparently was harmless, the incident demonstrates how easily non-students can gain access to campus residences.
