Getting to class is hard to do. But for students at the School of General Studies, simply getting through the front door can be a struggle.
The current policy requires Barnard, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Columbia College students to sign GS students into any residential building, including Broadway, Wien, and Hogan as well as the Living Learning Center in Hartley and Wallach—buildings that house important student resources.
Problems arise when GS students need to access certain parts of residential halls for class, club meetings, or Counseling and Psychological Services offices, according to General Studies Student Council members.
For GS students, it is considered a minor inconvenience at best and an invasion of privacy at worst.
“We pay for these facilities, and we only have access to them on a conditional basis,” said Jenny Chong, GSSC vice president of policy.
“It invades privacy,” added Katherine Edwards, GSSC president. “If you are at a place for a psychological appointment, it’s extremely embarrassing to have to ask a stranger to sign you in.”
It’s a policy that has made attending certain classes inconvenient for Edwards. “I have an econometrics recitation in Broadway,” she said. “Sometimes I can’t get in the building because there isn’t anyone around to sign me in and it’s just really frustrating.”
Though the universal swipe access initiative may be stalled, GSSC hopes it has found an effective compromise.
The council’s proposal is modest, according to Edwards. “We’re not asking for unlimited access, we’re just asking for access to public spaces of some buildings,” she said.
Under the new policy, she explained, GS students would identify as being in GS when swiping in and could then sign themselves into the building—essentially a self-sign-in system.
Sabrina Buckwalter, GS and delegate at large for policy in GSSC, said she thinks the proposed policy would actually increase security and accountability in residence halls. Under these possible changes, “you know who and when comes in the building and when they come out.”
“The way the resolution is written now shows that we want to change the definition of what a ‘student’ is to access residential buildings,” Buckwalter said. “Currently, ‘student’ only means CC-SEAS in the living guide, but we want to add GS to that definition so, by proxy, we get access to buildings.”
She added, “Even a GS sticker on the [student I.D.] card would help.”
Jose Robledo, GS and a University student senator, said that the current system allows for loopholes and may be less secure in some areas than the proposed policy. The proposed policy stipulates that security knows exactly who is in the building at any given time—and knows who to hold accountable for student behavior in the residence halls.
“There is a concern that if a GS student goes into a dorm and breaks a window, the window … broken is taken out of the account the student who’s dorm it is in,” he said.
Robledo once tested the policy out himself. “I had a friend sign me in for a study session and I wanted to test the [sign-in] system for holes. My friend comes down, and I signed in as ‘Mickey Mouse.’ After the study session, I came back and signed out as ‘Mickey Mouse’. If a window had been broken, ‘Mickey Mouse’ would be held responsible.”
GS student leaders plan to present their proposal to administrators next week. Debate about GS swipe access into dorms has been ongoing, though forward movement regarding the policy seems to have stalled in recent years.
But this year, the proposal may see some results. The plan has garnered support from other school councils, including the Engineering Student Council. “The GS council has raised a lot of very good points,” Whitney Green, SEAS ’10 and president of ESC, remarked.
Though he didn’t get into the policy’s details, Brian Birkeland, assistant director of housing and accommodation services, promised that GS swipe-in “is an important issue for the administration.”
“All we want is support from everyone,” Edwards said. “We need people to rally behind us, and we want people to know that we’re not asking for something great or huge, but something that will make our lives easier.”
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