South Hall residents will have one less key to carry next fall as the dorm begins a pilot program in which residents will swipe their identification cards to gain access to the building. The Department of Public Safety is testing the feasibility of ID access to residence halls to determine whether the practice should be implemented campus-wide.
Public Safety will evaluate the pilot periodically throughout the semester. "This will help us determine whether or not Public Safety might propose that ID access be used campus-wide," Director of Public Safety John King said. "One of the things we're always trying to evaluate is how to improve security."
South Hall was wired with the ID access technology when it was built in 1991. The system was enabled years ago but was shut off because of hardware problems. Since then, Tufts has switched from pouch-type ID cards to digital-imaging ones, which are more compatible with the technology.
Implementing ID card access for all residence halls will not be as easy as setting up the South pilot project, however, as the swipe technology would have to be installed in the older dormitories.
The ID card system can be more secure than keys, as the cards are difficult to duplicate and distribute to non-residents. If a card is lost or stolen, it can be immediately deactivated so that whoever finds it will not be able to enter the dorm.
"It's a good idea because it's not really going to cost anything, and the system is already in place. We can try it for however long, and if the student input is good, we can keep the system. If there's such negative input, we can scrap it," Tufts Community Union Senate Vice President Eric Greenberg said. "It's safer, it's one less key that you have to worry about, and it's a quick and easy swipe."
South Hall has a large lounge area, and Greenberg suggested that all students IDs could be programmed so that they could access this space for club meetings and practices. It is possible to give students access to the lounge without letting them into the residence hallways because students in South must enter a second set of doors to get to their rooms. But Public Safety has yet to decide whether Greenberg's suggestion is feasible.
Public Safety plans to mail a questionnaire to South Hall residents to gauge their perception of security issues in the building. A similar survey was undertaken when Public Safety revised parking policies with the opening of Dowling Hall, and King said that student opinion proved vital to the success of the changes.
A dormitory on the graduate campus in downtown Boston recently began a program for ID access like the one set for South, but it has not been in operation long enough to be evaluated. The issue has come up repeatedly during maintenance and construction projects, and King feels that staff and faculty support the measure.
Greenberg, who is a resident advisor in South, said the students he has spoken to are in favor of the program. "When told it's about convenience and security, generally there's been no problem with it," he said.
"It will make it easier to get in the dorm, and also safer since it will only let in South Residents, and maybe that will decrease the amount of 'suspicious persons' seen walking the halls of South," freshman South resident Karyn Blaser said.
Although the new system is intended to increase security, King said the ID access project for South is not a direct response to the spying incidents reported last December, when a number of South residents reported suspicious persons peering into shower stalls.
The advent of ID access will provide increased convenience for students while also elevating their level of security.
"I think that it's a good technology, and then we wouldn't have to bother with so many keys. If someone lost their key, we wouldn't have to worry about someone finding it and coming in," Blaser said.
Greenberg's only reservation concerning the plan is a fear that the University could act as "big brother," keeping records of its students movements in and out of their dorms. But such monitoring is already possible through the use of ID cards for meals and the library, and Greenberg said Tufts has never misused the technology.
