As most students have heard by now, the Troy Building has undergone an increase in security, the first in a series of moves toward access control in buildings throughout campus. According to Director of Public Safety Bernard Drobnicki, Troy is being used as a prototype for both student and faculty response to the program and for tests of the measures put in place to see what works best for the space.
“The reason for moving in this direction is that access control enables just that: let people in and keep people out,” said Drobnicki. “It will offer greater flexibility of use and security.”
Drobnicki explained that plans for access control have been in the works for years, and that even the CII was wired for the program when it was built, but budget shortfalls and changing priorities have left the program shelved until now. Lost and unreturned keys that compromise the school are the primary impetus for the change, Drobnicki said, but come in addition to a search for a better way to lock and unlock the campus. “It’s nothing new, but we’re just seeing a projected growth of a system” that has been in place for years, he explained.
At present, a public safety officer has to walk to every building and lock the doors to secure the campus, and then do the same to open it again. As a result, he continued, it takes hours to lock down the area, and can take even longer in the event of an emergency. With the new system, doors can be programmed to lock after the last class in that building, and open again at the appropriate time in the morning.
“Under the new program, public safety can be freed up to perform proactive patrols rather than locking doors,” Drobnicki said.
Students and faculty will still be able to access the spaces outside of regular hours if they are authorized, Drobnicki emphasized. Each student’s ID card will be activated similarly to that in the freshmen dorms, so that if someone needs access to a building, they need only wave the card at the receiver. “The system can do tremendous things. It can provide students 24-hour access, or if you have office hours or lab time, it can do that.”
Drobnicki said that students should not experience any changes in their movement on campus. The buildings will be open at the same times that they are open now, and will be locked at the same times also. And while there is a guard in the Troy building, it has not yet been decided whether other buildings that have desks such as Biotech, JEC, Folsom, and Robison Pool will be staffed.
“The placement of a person is not always the appropriate response. I would not expect to see personnel in all our buildings,” Drobnicki explained.
The plan is expected to be implemented in phases. Biotech and eMPAC will be access controlled, and other buildings, such as Walker and Pittsburgh where few people need access late at night, are being examined for the program. In addition, the Greene Building will probably be put through the process in the early stages.
“The School of Architecture is very self-contained,” Drobnicki explained, “and has a psychology that would accept this system.”
Drobnicki does anticipate some problems with integration of the new system. “The students have been using it for 10-plus years and have embraced it, but the issue is getting the staff to embrace it,” he lamented. More than half of all students currently have the proximity ID cards, but only a handful of faculty do. Having the ones who work in the Troy Building renew their cards took over a month, Drobnicki said, and does not expect any better results with the faculty as a whole.
