Stevens' Residence Life

Although it's not specifically the internet that's the problem, I feel that the Residence Life office at Stevens' ought to have a lesson or two in C&S; they have been recently switching all the doors from keys to ID cards. Now, this is great and all, because it stops you from making a copy of your key and giving anyone full access to your building. However, what they have failed to consider, or simply chose not to, is the denial of service this creates in the event of a power outage. When I lived in Castle Point Apartments last year, the Office of Residence Life did the same thing - they removed our key cores, so that keys could no longer be used to access the building. Then, Hurricane Sandy hit Hoboken, and because they were too brainless to put key functionality back in, a lot of people were locked out on a daily basis, and the solution was to simply leave the front door open at all times. Really? Isn't limiting access to the building the reason they removed the key cores in the first place?

One would think this would teach them a lesson - but no, this year, now that I'm living in Palmer Hall, they decided to do it again: they removed the key cores from Palmer. Literally later that week, there was a power outage in Palmer Hall, for some unknown reason, and, oh so surprisingly, the ID cards didn't work. I propped the door open - Residence Life wasn't even aware of the power outage for a good few hours. When myself and a few friends decided to email Residence Life to ask for the key cores back, we were ignored. However, one friend decided to call - and he was told that the reason for using ID cards only is not just for limiting the people who can enter a building, but also for keeping track of where each student is at all times – for safety purposes. The idea would be that in the event that a student goes missing, they have some idea of the last time the student was seen.

Is this not the exact same thing that created loads of hype with the NSA? For the sake of security, some higher organization has taken it upon itself to invade privacy and automate the recording of “public information”. The worst part is that the majority of students doesn't know or haven’t been told the reason for the removal of key cores – they just go along with it, perfectly accepting of the new oppressive Residence Life policy.   

Digitizing everything works sometimes, but the ramifications of doing so need to be considered – it’s simply not a good decision to compromise availability of a service just for the sake of “added security” – I somehow doubt that their security system that they speak of, where they can keep track of where each student is ever actually gets put into use. I mean, I could easily avoid swiping anywhere for a week – there’s a side door to Palmer which is always left ajar, or I could tail behind another person and not use my swipe. Would they do anything if I didn't use my swipe for a week? Probably not – so why do they insist on this digital system as a means of “security”, when all it really does is hinder availability?