Swipe access for all

The use of swipe access to enter Columbia buildings has long been a controversial issue. Presently, all students and employees at Columbia have access to buildings like Lerner Hall, Butler Library, and Dodge Fitness Center. But many students—particularly those from the School of General Studies and Barnard College—find access to dormitories extremely inconvenient. The General Studies Student Council is hoping to fix this by creating self-sign-in policy, a solution that is both reasonable and long overdue.

Columbia dorms are only accessible to students in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science currently living in undergraduate housing. Barnard and GS students must be signed in by a resident in order to enter the dormitories, which house services needed by all students, such as study rooms, computer labs, psychological services, mail rooms, and counseling centers. Gaining access to these buildings is often problematic and creates in place an unnecessary division between students. GS students, in particular, pay tuition for many of the services that they don’t have immediate access to. Resolving the so-called “universal swipe access” conflict has been a significant issue in the past, but a reasonable and satisfactory resolution has yet to be presented.

That is, until now. GSSC is seeking a housing system in which GS students may sign themselves into undergraduate dorms when they need to meet with a study group or need access to other services within the dorm. This would allow limited access to the public spaces within dorms—the places that GS students help finance. This plan, we hope, can include Barnard students as well. While security is always a concern for undergraduate dorms, there is no reason why members of the same undergraduate community should not have access to all of the services to which they are entitled.

GSSC is right to take up this issue, and the other student councils ought to support this initiative as well. The administration realizes that this is an issue important to students, so negotiations should produce an outcome that satisfies all parties. Undergraduate access to dorms has been a problem for too long—students and administrators must work to find a solution.