East Lansing is alive again with the hustle and bustle of MSU's student body. It's official — fall semester has begun.
But before classes even started, an off-duty night receptionist was assaulted while trying to enforce the university's new, stricter dorm-visitation policy.
Although details are blurry, the night receptionist was injured Sunday morning in East Wilson Hall during an encounter with a visitor improperly allowed in the front door.
The new procedure, implemented to protect the safety of MSU students, is already off to a rocky start. The policy requires dorm guests entering any MSU residence hall between midnight and 7 a.m. to leave a valid picture ID with the night receptionist.
All residence halls should have some type of security system to protect the thousands of students living on campus, but this particular policy doesn't seem adequate.
While, in theory, the new policy makes visitors more responsible for their actions, it neglects to address one big problem facing dorm security. Collecting visitors' IDs will help to keep track of those coming through the front door, but what about visitors who sneak in through side doors?
Because night receptionists must check in all dorm guests, including both MSU students and nonstudents, it is likely that at busy times, lines to check in visitors will seem like more of a hassle than it's worth to residents. This is when residents will probably turn to side doors, leaving night receptionists uninformed about who is in the building and unable to point fingers if damage is done.
To utilize an effective security system, the university should turn to those who are affected most — the residents.
University officials released a study in November 2005 in which students living in Emmons Hall, the only key card-secured residence hall, were asked if the ID-scanning system made them feel safer.
It turns out, 64 percent of Emmons Hall residents at that time thought security policies used in other dorms were sufficient enough, while only 27 percent felt Emmons Hall's ID access system increased their safety.
Once this new system is in place for a period of time, students should be asked for a response to see how effective — or ineffective — the policy truly is.
MSU has about 17,000 students living in residence halls, and this makes our university home to the largest, single-campus residence hall system in the country.
Most freshmen are required to live in the dorms, and many continue to stay once their first year is complete. It doesn't make sense that we have not yet found an adequate security system to protect this large portion of our student population.
