Starting this fall, residents in Kilgo Quadrangle on West Campus and Southgate Dormitory on East Campus will need DukeCards to enter their bathrooms. DukeCard readers were installed this summer and should be functional by the time students return to campus.
The two-dorm pilot program was prompted by ongoing concerns about bathroom safety, which dominated much of campus discussion last year after a man waiting inside a second-floor bathroom in Wannamaker Dormitory reportedly attacked and sexually assaulted a female resident.
Eddie Hull, director of Residence Life and Housing Services, said that by installing DukeCard readers, the University should be able to both increase security and mitigate some of the costs associated with the key-access system still in place in most dormitories.
"As soon as someone realizes their card is missing, we're hoping they will notify the DukeCard office immediately, at which point we can take the card off-line," Hull said. "The cards are relatively easy to reprogram, and we wouldn't have to spend $75 to replace a mechanical lock every time someone lost a bathroom key."
The installation of the card readers in Kilgo and Southgate followed a Campus Council recommendation from the spring. Anthony Vitarelli, Campus Council president, said the proposal was one of the most important aspects of the organization's larger safety resolution.
"Bathroom security is immensely important to student safety in the residence halls, and we had to make sure that only those who were supposed to have access got in," Vitarelli said.
He added that the card reader system is the only method that can ensure safety while allowing for the system to transfer from resident to resident if need be, and that it is a vast improvement over the key-access system.
"Students will no longer be able to tape bathroom doors open, allowing anyone to enter them," he said. "Plus, keys can get lost, and any time between when a key is lost and the lock is changed, the whole hall is vulnerable. Card readers can be changed instantly."
Hull said an additional benefit of the card-reader system would be in the University's increased ability to track bathroom access, should the need arise. "If we needed to know, we could have information on who gained access to which bathrooms over certain periods of time," he said.
After the assault in Wannamaker in October 2002, the University changed the bathroom locks in all dormitories. The new locks were specific to gender and hall, and students were no longer able to access their bathrooms with their room keys. Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said last fall that cost was a prohibitive factor in installing DukeCard readers throughout the campus.
At a Duke Student Government advisory meeting on campus safety this summer, Assistant Dean of Residence Life Deb LoBiondo told participants that some of the Wannamaker bathrooms could still be accessed by the keys of residents of the opposite sex. However, when pressed for details, LoBiondo, Hull and others in RLHS declined comment or denied that this was the case.
Despite a positive outlook on the card-reader system, both Hull and Vitarelli stressed the role of students in continuing to promote their own safety within the dorms.
"The challenge is that what we're relying on to make it work is for students to use it responsibly," Hull said. "Any housing director in the country will tell you that it's the use by students themselves that ultimately matters. This is often hard for students to hear until something happens you wish hadn't happened."
Hull said the card-reader system will be tested temporarily until a decision can be made on its efficacy.
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