Dorm security is no joke
The official response to the increasing incidents of intrusion in Allison Hall is not simply inadequate, but appalling. As a result of a slew thefts and reports of suspicious people entering dorm rooms and bathrooms in the middle of the night, the second floor residents of Allison were called to a mandatory meeting Tuesday evening.
Police officers supposedly addressed dorm safety, but merely reiterated past warnings about watching who you let in behind you and not propping hall doors open. When one female student asked what to do if caught alone in the shower when a strange man appeared -as her roommate had -The officers seemed at a loss for ideas and finally suggested that she scream for help.
The lack of proactive measures on behalf of Northwestern is an insult to our intelligence and a threat to our safety. I do not believe that anyone who lives here would wittingly let in a blatantly suspicious person. The officers even mentioned that the intruders often pose as students, wearing Northwestern apparel, and can successfully blend in. How then can they ask us to take sole responsibility for these incidents?
In light of this serious threat and our proximity to downtown Evanston, I suggest that an adult security monitor be on duty nightly from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. in both Allison and Willard Residential College and that every student who enters be required to show their NU Identification. At Columbia University, guests may sign in by leaving a form of identification at this check-in desk to be returned upon exiting the building.
In response to the attacks occurring on and near campus, University Police successfully scaled up the number of patrol cars and lighting on campus. If something as simple as a one-minute sign-in and a relatively inexpensive security guard could prevent thousands of dollars of theft and potential bodily harm, it is NU’s responsibility to ensure our safety on campus.
Luckily, so far no one has been hurt. What tragedy will it take before NU takes action on this issue?
– Dena Trugman,
Weinberg sophomore
MLK Day stirs emotion
A part of me completely dreads Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when one more speaker twists the thorn in the side of our campus minorities to re-examine how we have “dropped the ball” for one more consecutive year.
On some level, I think Kweisi Mfume dreads the day too. And so does Ms. Venessa Woods, the Evanston Township High School teacher who spoke for the Associated Student Government-sponsored youth mentor program. They dread, like I do, the self-defeating backlash that comes from acknowledging that blacks and minorities are not yet equal to whites.
They dread, like I do, the potential anger and violence that many not-white kids may have when this realization is so candidly discussed. They dread the defensive white response that comes after, when young adults prowl dormitory hallways and draw swastikas and nooses or drive around Skokie on a lazy summer day to shoot up a Northwestern basketball coach, some Asianfolk, and a couple of guys with long beards.
Maybe I kind of get where those guys are coming from. I hate feeling like a bad person, and each year that’s what MLK Day does to me. And I’m not even white really. Yet each year this commemoration unleashes a horrible ironic anger-response to the memory of America’s most gentle historic figure. I don’t think that I’m alone: filled with their own dread at what MLK Day has become for so many of us, Mfume turns the microscope inward, and tells young blacks to stop disrespecting themselves. Woods does the same – she reminds students to afford dignity to those who would deny it.
I think they want to stop the ugly self-righteousness that obsesses us all. To extinguish the flaming anti-bigot bigots who march around our private campus handing out “Down with Bush” flyers and stop the sneers of those hateful treason-calling hate-mongerers who dismiss disagreement as stupidity. I think they see. King’s holiday as a good time to stop the hate, the burning emotion that so befouls his legacy. Now that we’ve found, photographed, and published online that horrible speck in our brothers’ eye, let us take a closer look in the mirror.
– Tanya S. Tickel,
Mechanical engineering graduate student
