For now, late-night trips to the bathroom will still require fumbling around in the dark for a bathroom key. Early this August, all DukeCard readers that were installed last summer to give students access to the bathrooms in Kilgo Quadrangle and Southgate Dormitory were removed due to technological difficulties in finding a feasible and functioning system.
The pilot program, suggested by Campus Council in Spring 2003, was set to begin last fall as soon as the bathroom readers were ready to operate on a new wireless system that would enable the readers to connect to the University network without being hard-wired.
A working wireless system, however, proved difficult to implement, and DukeCard access to the bathrooms was delayed throughout the 2003-2004 academic year.
“We were not able to find a product that was satisfactory,” said Fidelia Thomason, director of residence hall operations. “This is a new way of using wireless readers and this kind of wireless technology has not been around for a long time.”
Residence Life and Housing Services officials have not given up on DukeCard bathroom access and are planning a meeting in September to discuss alternative wireless system options from other vendors.
Security concerns—heightened after reported sexual assaults in the Wannamaker and Randolph dormitories in 2002—have been the driving force behind the push for bathroom DukeCard access. In theory, students would no longer need to prop open lavatory doors or jam locks if they had DukeCard access, Thomason said. The University would also have a record of all the students who entered the bathroom if needed.
The unusable card readers were removed because they presented a false image to students, leading them to think that DukeCard access was available, said Eddie Hull, executive director of housing services and dean of residence life.
“We got criticized for installing them and then never having them operable,” he said. “The criticism was fair, we didn’t have the service available to have them installed in the first place.”
Campus Council President Anthony Vitarelli remains adamant about the need for allowing students access to bathrooms through their DukeCards, calling on the administration to pursue different vendors with alternative solutions. “Bottom line, there is no future for bathroom keys, in the sense that every time someone loses their keys they are charged an exorbitant fine and everyone else in the dorm is also inconvenienced,” he said.
There are two options other than the wireless system. First, the bathroom’s readers could be hard-wired back to the central system, like all other DukeCard readers. The financial aspects of this alternative render it impractical, as it would cost $1.2 million to install the system, Thomason said.
Second, the card readers could run on an off-line system similar to the systems found in hotels. This alternative, while cheaper, could compromise the safety of students if a DukeCard were lost.
Regardless of the system’s details, students are clamoring for bathroom card access for many reasons. “Duke needs to take some action or implement some measures to protect students in the dorm,” said senior Julie Hutchinson, who has written opinion pieces for The News & Observer of Raleigh and spoken on National Public Radio about the subject of bathroom security. “Card readers both restrict access and, if there is a problem, provide a log of who accessed the bathroom. They have them on all the dorms anyway.”
Sophomore Arthur Fischer-Zernin sees the issue as one of convenience. “It’s such a huge ordeal every time you needed to go to the bathroom,” he said. “It doesn’t seem necessary.”
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