By Michael GsovskiDaily Northwestern
About a dozen people met Monday night in Foster-Walker Complex to discuss ways to pressure administrators into loosening recently enacted dorm security measures.
Dorm residents, three Foster-Walker community assistants and Foster-Walker’s area coordinator met to discuss the measures, which since the beginning of the quarter have limited most dorms to one usable entrance. Alarms on all other doors are active 24 hours a day. In Foster-Walker, that means more than a dozen doors are off-limits.
Many residents said the policies did not make them more secure. They argued that the changes actually encouraged practices that endangered their safety.
One student said that one night she heard an alarm that had been ringing for 30 minutes. When she went to investigate, she found that the door had been wedged open with a brick. She said the ringing alarms could desensitize students to real emergencies and that the open door could have allowed intruders inside the dorm.
McCormick junior and Foster-Walker Vice President Clinton McClure said recent maintenance problems demonstrated the failures of the new policy. For example, a door leading from the main lobby to the west side of the dorm broke down over the weekend. The door has been propped open since it was damaged.
Some students, such as Medill sophomore Alex Presha, said the new policy negatively affects the quality of life in Foster-Walker as well.
“Every morning at 7:30, the alarm goes off – probably some engineering student going to an early class,” Presha said. “I could use it as an alarm clock.”
McClure said the hall government has tried to get the policy modified. It asked that Foster-Walker’s fire doors be exempted, arguing that channeling Foster-Walker’s more than 600 students through only one door would be unsafe. Administrators denied the request.
Because of Foster-Walker’s layout, certain sections on the first floor are only accessible from secondary entrances or a stairwell. When required to use the main door, residents of these hallways must travel up to the second floor and back down in order to reach their rooms.
Students and administrators will meet Thursday to discuss further exemptions from the security policy. University Police Assistant Chief Dan McAleer said officials previously exempted a few doors, including a couple of doors on the first floor of Foster-Walker and one door each from Sargent Hall and Shepard Residential College.
“We need actual reasons the administration will listen to,” said Foster-Walker President and Weinberg junior Eric Parker. “We need more creative ways of showing that this policy isn’t working.”
Attendees’ suggestions ranged from giving administration officials a banner with Foster-Walker residents’ thoughts on the alarms, to delaying the filing of their housing applications to place financial pressure on the university. Ultimately, attendees agreed to gather data on incidents of “tailgating,” or students accessing the dorm without keys by following residents as they enter. They hope the data will convince administrators that the current policy is ineffective.
Parker said he will present the data at the Thursday meeting, “assuming they allow me to speak.”
Despite the low turnout at Monday’s meeting, McClure said he was optimistic about the task force’s progress.
“I think this meeting set us in the right direction,” McClure said.
Reach Michael Gsovski at [email protected].
