As the face of campus access changes, MSU officials have started to look at ways to make sure the community experience isn’t off-limits to hall residents.
The university hopes to have all residence halls switched to electronic access by January 2012, said Vennie Gore, assistant vice president for residential and hospitality services.
Currently, four residence halls — Emmons, Snyder, Phillips and Holden halls — have electronic access to the resident living wings, Gore said. The university plans to add access to Akers, Wonders, Hubbard, Mason and Abbot Halls by the beginning of August, he said. Installing electronic access costs about $5,000 per door.
“Over the last several years, we have been starting to implement electric door access entry,” Gore said. “Putting access in buildings will allow residents to use their card to let themselves into their halls, but there are policies and procedures we need to make sure we have first.”
Gore said a Door Access Subcommittee is responsible for coming up with recommendations on how implementation should proceed by the end of the semester.
Emma Perot, president of the MSU Residence Halls Association, or RHA, brought up the question at an RHA assembly meeting Feb. 10.
“The main concern was that the feeling of community was hindered if you had an electric swipe,” Perot said.
Perot, who also is a committee member, said another question raised in RHA that she will bring to the subcommittee was how students from different halls would access other dorms.
Safety and peace of mind for students remained the ultimate goal of both RHA and the committee, Perot said.
“It would really provide students with (a) better feeling of security of knowing who is all on their floor and who can come up to the resident living areas,” Perot said.
Some students, such as English freshman Tyler Soule, thought the idea of electronic access should take into account the difficulty of gaining access to halls if a student identification card is lost.
“If you forget your ID or misplace it for the little electric sliders, I feel you’re pretty much just screwed,” Soule said.
Journalism freshman Jessica Whitmill said although she has never had to use an electronic swipe, she was unsure whether it would do any good to expand the program to other halls. She said student receptionists perform the same function at night.
“It’s an alright idea,” Whitmill said. “I don’t really see the point in it … I don’t think it would really make that much of a difference.”
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