With the recent events on campus that have been questioning our sense of security we need to look at how we are responding and if we are taking the proper steps to prevent future violations of human rights. For those of you who have been neglecting to pay attention to university news, several weeks ago there was an incident on campus which involved a man impersonating a James Hall resident assistant, who then proceeded to enter into unlocked rooms.
What have we done since this incident to prevent this type of thing from happening again? There are signs in the resident halls to remind students to lock their doors and be careful with who they are associating with, but more steps need to be taken.
It’s become apparent that the university needs to take charge in protecting the lives of our fellow students. Not all at this school will remember, and more importantly care, about locking their doors, signing in residents and taking necessary steps to protect themselves and their roommates from others.
Southern Connecticut State University, another school in our system, has a much stricter policy on resident hall sign-ins. At CCSU, resident assistants go on duty at 7 p.m. and are off duty by 1 a.m. At SCSU, these shifts last through the night. If someone is going to work their way into a residence hall, they can definitely wait until 1 a.m. before doing so. Why we don’t have stricter sign-ins in the dorms is very troubling. While New Haven itself might pose more reason for SCSU’s stepped up security, the event James Hall students experienced should be reason enough to elongate the hours of sign-in shifts. After an event which questions current policies, nothing has changed on the behalf.
Self-locking doors need to become a necessity on every door. There are only a few buildings on campus which have these locking systems in place as most of the residence halls have a classic lock and key which can be left unlocked intentionally or by accident. While this might seem like a convenient feature, safety should outweigh convenience on the scale of importance. Of course, these changes can’t happen overnight, as replacing every lock would take planning and money. Instead, it should be on the university’s list of necessary upgrades for the safety and security of CCSU students.
It’s also necessary that the university police have to step up their patrolling of the residence halls. Looking for suspicious characters should be on their priority list. Also, if they are in the dorms, they can react to a situation much faster, should it arise. Their presence on campus is valuable, and should be used to the fullest extent, week in and week out.
Moving forward, there are policy changes which will need to be made, but there is a chance a lot of them won’t be pushed to the forefront unless another incident happens on this campus. Unfortunately, this is the way that many universities operate and ours is no different. Where we could stand apart is by taking preventative measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.