His Cocktail – Sal Trifilio
While recent events have led many to believe Fairfield requires an increase in security, it should not be done at the risk of invading students’ privacy.
Over the last four years, I have lived in two freshman dorms, a village dorm, a townhouse and now a Dolan apartment.
While I have undoubtedly paid my fair share of common area fines, I have never been required to live in a building or a house with Big Brother as Fairfield is subjecting students to today.
But it doesn’t stop there. Department of Public Safety has plans to install even more electronic eyes throughout the campus. How long is it until Fairfield becomes the Great Britain of college campuses?
It’s simple: Installing security cameras in the hallways of freshman dorm buildings is an invasion of privacy.
We attend a university of hypocrisy.
The University claims that it is indecent for students of the opposite sex to live on the same floor freshman year, and yet we record them walking to the bathroom in their towels.
Our president explains that our current business plan is anything but sustainable, and yet we push to add more cameras rather than applying these limited funds to more adequately compensate faculty and staff.
While it’s certainly ridiculous to say RAs should catch everything potential cameras would, it’s equally as ridiculous to say our buildings’ security is perfect. In fact, it’s far from it.
Any student who has taken the time to visit another university can attest to how flimsy our current swipe system is.
While other universities have security personnel stationed within the lobby of dorm halls who monitor those who come and go, we believe that as long as you can swipe into only your building after 11 p.m. then everything is fine.
Of course adapting to other universities’ security standards would require the hiring of new staff, but so would the increase of cameras. It would be more effective to put security in buildings rather than cameras.
Cameras cannot tell when a student feels uncomfortable with the person they are bringing into their building. They cannot tell when a visitor to a building is too intoxicated and should instead be sent home. And, they cannot tell when a visitor doesn’t match the StagCard they’ve used to enter a building.
When Fairfield considers the safety of our students, it should not be looking for the convenient solution; rather the University should consider what is most effective and right.
Living safely on the campus of a private university should not come at the cost of a student’s right to privacy.
jgh
His Beer – Luigi Dimeglio
This paper publishes coverage of campus crimes and incidents every week. Students and their parents consider paying for others’ messes an unfair and burdensome aspect of living on campus. Thus, it only makes sense that Fairfield usurp the most reliable methods available to eradicate improper conduct.
As a former resident of one of the most physically and psychologically hostile residence halls on campus (Gonzaga 2010-2011), I understand Fairfield’s motives to install cameras in some of the rowdier residences on campus.
I was once falsely accused of defecating in the Gonzaga, first floor, south side trash room. After a questioning session with public safety officers, I was declared to not to be a suspect anymore. I felt temporarily slandered by the anonymous tipper that had accused me. If there were a camera in the area to witness the actual perpetrator defecating in the trash room, then my time and anxiety would have been saved.
That story brings me to the next point: intimacy. Some might argue that, because the halls with the newest cameras have communal bathrooms, privacy is being infringed upon. Opponents of the corridor surveillance cameras should remember that if they are students, they sign contracts to live on this campus and those contracts prohibit certain privacy rights. DPS does not have to obtain a warrant before entering “your” room to search for suspected contraband. They are not going to ask for your opinion before having your young, supple, barely toweled body on tape as it makes for the bathing quarters. You’re welcome.
My direct opponent to the right, Mr. Trifilio, briefly suggests that hired personnel would be a better solution to Fairfield’s safety and damage concerns. All that can be said about the cost comparisons is that cameras will never ask for pension packages, health care or unionization. I will continue to dismantle the security personnel idea even more anyway: Assigning more adults to buildings means that there is another mother or father figure for students to have in their subconscious while at school. Little glass lenses in the corners of a building are less intrusive than a person that is paid to be aware of the actions of people around them.
College is meant to be a time where young adults transition to a life in the real world. In the real world, America has dedicated billions of dollars to tracking your movements, habits and life decisions that could one day be used against you after you have matured years later. It is Fairfield’s obligation to prepare students for this reality. You people post half of the idiotic things you do on Facebook anyway. Surveillance cameras in more and more residence halls will not miss a beat of this action you secretly take pride in. Own up to your idiocy. Once again: You’re welcome.
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