By Michael GsovskiThe Daily Northwestern
Given the time he and other dorm presidents spent on fire door exemptions this quarter, Foster-Walker Complex President Eric Parker said the dorm security debate has been very single-minded.
“The fire door issue became the big issue for the past quarter and a half,” said Parker, a Weinberg junior. “We didn’t focus a lot on the other aspects of (the security plan). It’s not resolved.”
However, with a little less than a month left in Spring Quarter, the changes the administration plans to make for the fall are approaching. Starting Fall Quarter, the practice of relying on student security monitors to guard residence halls and residential colleges will end. Professional security guards will replace them in dorms housing more than 150 people, and closed-circuit video cameras will be placed in all dorm lobbies.
The cameras, which will record 24/7, will be not be monitored in real time and only will be used to investigate a prior incident, according to Dan McAleer, assistant chief of University Police.
Parker said he had no major problems with cameras, but he did have concerns over some possible uses of video evidence.
“As long it’s only used for investigating crimes of damaging property or outsiders trying to get into the dorm, I’d be fine with it,” Parker said. “If it’s used for any type of student hearings, I think I wouldn’t.”
As for the guards, McAleer said they will be trained by UP, but not sworn in as officers. They will have no powers of arrest over students and will have to radio a UP officer upon encountering trouble. McAleer said the guards’ main purpose will be like that of a student security monitor: to screen the students who live in the dorm from those who don’t.
Parker said he was skeptical that a guard would be able to get to know all of the more than 600 students in his dorm, but was still receptive to the idea.
“It’ll be a steep learning curve,” Parker said, “But anything that improves security is good.”
The controversy over security in university dorms began March 27, when all secondary doors in dorms were equipped with 24-hour fire alarms. The policy was implemented despite student protest to prevent non-residents from entering the buildings after nine dorm intrusions last year. The Daily reported earlier this month that 14 secondary doors received exemptions from the policy.
In dorms with fewer than 150 residents, some concerns have been expressed about not having anyone in their lobbies watching for intruders.
UP has hired four more officers to patrol general dorm areas, bringing its force to 48 members, McAleer said.
Music freshman Stacey Kurtz, president of Jones Residential College, said her residents feel uneasy about having nobody guarding the lobby because of the design of the building.
“My residents are very concerned about security because we have a theater right in our entryway,” Kurtz said. “So many people come in and out that a camera does not make them feel safer.”
Kurtz said that when she e-mailed her residents about the policy, she asked them to send her their thoughts on the policy so that she could pass them along to William Banis, NU’s vice president for student affairs.
“We had 37 pages of writing from residents,” Kurtz said. “They said, ‘This is why I don’t feel safe about this’ or ‘Keep our security monitor’ or ‘Keep the system we have now.'”
Kurtz said Banis responded by saying that the input was being taken into consideration, and modifications to the policy would be announced by the end of the year. McAleer confirmed that some changes were under consideration, although he could not say what those changes might be.
“It’s still under discussion,” McAleer said. “I don’t know how it’s going to end up, but I know there’s still discussion about that.”
Reach Michael Gsovski at [email protected].
